Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Screenplay The Primary Part
by RedwallFan42
Summary: Arthur Dent is trying to prevent his house from being bulldozed when his friend Ford Prefect whisks him into outer space. It turns out Ford is an alien who has just saved Arthur from Earth's total annihilation. Ford introduces Arthur to his myriad friends, including many-headed President Zaphod Beeblebrox and sexy refugee and astrophysicist Trillian.


The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

By Jon von Nieda

Based on the book

"Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

By

Douglas Adams

**SCENE I – EXT. ARTHUR DENT'S HOUSE – MID MORNING**

A man is lying down in front of a bull dozer in a clear state of protest. The sun is up, in front of the house is construction and news crews broadcasting the event. Bystanders are recording on their cellphones. The man is Arthur Dent, dressed in pajamas and robe, blocking it from destroying his house.

The Construction Foreman, a bureaucrat, is speaking through a megaphone.

FOREMAN

Come off it Mr. Dent, you can't win you know. There's no point in lying down in the path of progress.

ARTHUR

I've abandoned the idea of progress. It's overrated.

FOREMAN

But you must realize that you can't lie in front of the bulldozers indefinitely.

ARTHUR

I'm game, we'll see who rusts first.

FOREMAN

I'm afraid you're going to have to accept it. This bypass has got to be built, and it's going to be built. Nothing you can say or do...

ARTHUR

Why's it got to be built?

FOREMAN

What do you mean, why's it got to be built? It's a bypass, you've got to build bypasses.

ARTHUR

Didn't anyone consider the alternatives?

FOREMAN

There aren't any alternatives. Look, you were quite entitled to make any suggestions or protests at the appropriate time.

ARTHUR

Appropriate time? The first I knew about it was when a workman arrived at the door yesterday. I asked him if he'd come to clean the windows and he said he'd come to demolish the house. He didn't tell me straight away of course. No, first he wiped a couple of windows and charged me a twenty. Then he told me.

A news reporters earnestly try to interview Arthur Dent.

REPORTER #1

Mr. Dent would you consider this a blatant example of the city's over encompassing bureaucracy?

REPORTER #2

Mr. Dent will you lie there on the ground at all costs?

ARTHUR

I'll certainly try my best.

REPORTER #1

The Defiant Arthur Dent is making his stand against the city council. He represents how we all feel about the Department of Commerce's totalitarian regime. He is truly a hero for the ages.

FOREMAN

(Ordinary voice, but he is still clearly audible. In other words, he was standing next to Arthur anyway.)

But Mr. Dent, the plans have been available in the planning office for the last nine months.

ARTHUR

Yes. I went round to find them yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call much attention to them had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything.

FOREMAN

The plans were on display.

ARTHUR

And how many average members of the public are in the habit of casually dropping round at the local planning office of an evening? It's not exactly a noted social venue is it? And even if you had popped in on the off-chance that some raving bureaucrat wanted to knock your house down, the plans weren't immediately obvious to the eye, were they?

FOREMAN

That depends where you were looking.

ARTHUR

I eventually had to go down to the basement…

FOREMAN

That's the display department.

ARTHUR

…with a flashlight.

FOREMAN

Ah, the lights had probably gone.

ARTHUR

So had the stairs.

FOREMAN

But you found the notice didn't you?

ARTHUR

Yes. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a broken toilet with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'. Ever thought of going into advertising?

FOREMAN

It's not as if it's a particularly nice house anyway.

ARTHUR

I happen rather to like it.

FOREMAN

Mr. Dent!

ARTHUR

Hello? Yes?

FOREMAN

Have you any idea how much damage that bulldozer would suffer if I just let it roll straight over you?

ARTHUR

How much?

FOREMAN

None at all.

**SCENE II – ARTHUR DENT'S HOUSE – NOON**

FORD

(Arriving)

Hello Arthur.

ARTHUR

Ford, hi, how are you?

FORD

Fine, look, are you busy?

ARTHUR

Well, I've just got this bulldozer to lie in front of, otherwise no, not especially.

FORD

There's a bar down the road. Let's have a drink and we can talk.

ARTHUR

Look, don't you understand?

FOREMAN

Mr. Dent, We're waiting.

ARTHUR

Ford, that man wants to knock my house down!

FORD

Well, he can do it whilst you're away can't he?

ARTHUR

But I don't want him to!

FORD

Well just ask him to wait till you get back.

ARTHUR

Ford…

FORD

Arthur! Will you please just listen to me, I'm not fooling. I have got to tell you the most important thing you've ever heard, I've got to tell you now, and I've got to tell you in that bar there.

ARTHUR

Why?

FORD

Because you're going to need a very stiff drink. Now, just trust me.

ARTHUR

(Reluctantly)

I'll see what I can do. It'd better be good.

(Calls)

Hello! Mr. Foreman!

FOREMAN

Yes Mr. Dent? Have you come to your senses yet?

ARTHUR

Can we just for a moment assume for the moment that I haven't?

FOREMAN

Well?

ARTHUR

And that I'm going to be staying put here till you go away?

FOREMAN

So?

ARTHUR

So you're going to be standing around all day doing nothing.

FOREMAN

Could be.

ARTHUR

Well, if you're resigned to standing around doing nothing all day you don't actually need me here all the time do you?

FOREMAN

Er, no. Not as such.

ARTHUR

So if you can just take it as read that I am actually here, I could just slip off down to the bar for half an hour. How does that sound?

FOREMAN

Er…that sounds…very er, reasonable I think Mr. Dent. I'm sure we don't actually need you there for the whole time. We can just hold up our end of the confrontation.

ARTHUR

And if you want to pop off for a bit later on I can always cover for you in return.

FOREMAN

Oh, thank you. Yes. That'll be fine Mr. Dent. Very kind.

ARTHUR

And of course it goes without saying that you don't try and destroy my house while I'm away.

FOREMAN

What? Good Lord no Mr. Dent. The mere thought hadn't even begun to speculate about the merest possibility of crossing my mind.

ARTHUR

Do you think we can trust him?

FORD

Myself, I'd trust him to the end of the Earth.

ARTHUR

Yes, but how far's that?

FORD

About twelve minutes away. Come on, I need a drink.

**SCENE III – INT. BAR – NOON**

Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent enter into a standard American bar. The bar has pool tables and a seedy atmosphere. On the TV is a football game playing, Boise State vs. Ohio State.

FORD

Six pints of Adams. And quickly please, the world's about to end.

BARMAN

Oh yes, sir? Nice weather for it. Going to watch the game this afternoon sir?

FORD

No. No point.

BARMAN

Foregone conclusion then, you reckon sir? Boise State hasn't got a chance?

FORD

No, it's just that the world's going to end.

BARMAN

Of yes, sir, so you said. Lucky escape for Boise if it did.

FORD

No, not really.

BARMAN

There you are sir, six pints.

FORD

Keep the change.

BARMAN

What, from a hundred? Thank you, sir.

FORD

You've got minutes left to spend it.

ARTHUR

Ford, would you please tell me what the hell is going on? I think I'm beginning to lose my grip on the day.

FORD

Drink up, you've got three pints to get through.

ARTHUR

Three? At lunchtime?

FORD

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

ARTHUR

Oh good, very deep. You should send that in to the Huffington Post. They've got a page for people like you.

FORD

Drink up.

ARTHUR

Why three pints?

FORD

Muscle relaxant. You'll need it.

ARTHUR

Will it work?

FORD

It will, but it's still not nearly as good as a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.

ARTHUR

What's that?

FORD

Have you ever had a drink that had the effect of having your brains smashed out with a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick?

ARTHUR

Er…no I haven't.

FORD

Oh, never mind then.

ARTHUR

Did I do something wrong today, or has the world always been like this and I've been too wrapped up in myself to notice?

FORD

All right. I'll try to explain. How long have we known each other Arthur?

ARTHUR

Umm…five years, maybe six. Most of it seemed to make some kind of sense at the time.

FORD

All right. How would you react if I said that I'm not from Guildford after all, but from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse?

ARTHUR

(Really baffled now)

I don't know. Why, do you think it's the sort of thing you feel you're likely to say?

FORD

Drink up, the world's about to end.

ARTHUR

This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.

**SCENE IV – ARTHUR DENT'S HOUSE – EARLY AFTERNOON**

Mayor Emilia Anderson is a sort of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Kamala Harris character, who delivers this speech with dignity and utter conviction through a barrage of enraged boos and catcalls.

MAYOR EMILIA

I have been asked to come here to say a few words to mark the beginning of work on the very splendid and worthwhile new Boise bypass. And I must say immediately what a great honor and a great privilege I think it must be for you, the people of Boise, to have this gleaming new motorway going through your stupid little city…I'm sorry, your insignificant city of stupid Boise.

Shouts from annoyed crowd.

MAYOR EMILIA (CONT'D)

I know how proud you must feel at this moment to know that your obscure and unknown boom town, will now arise reborn as the very splendid and worthwhile Boise Central Station, providing welcome convenience and rush hour relief for every weary citizen on his way.

VOICE l

Why don't you push off, you crud-faced old bat?

VOICE 2

What about our bloody homes?

MAYOR EMILIA

And for myself, it gives me great pleasure to take this bottle of very splendid and worthwhile champagne and break it against the noble prow of this very splendid and worthwhile yellow bulldozer.

She proceeds to christen the bulldozer with the champagne by smashing it against it. There is an odd mix of loud jeers and perfunctory ripples of applause from one or two of the hired lackeys.

**SCENE V – INT. BAR – EARLY AFTERNOON**

Arthur Dent is enjoying his drink when the muffled sounds of his house being demolished drift through the background noise.

ARTHUR

What's that?

FORD

Don't worry, they haven't started yet.

ARTHUR

Oh good.

FORD

It's probably just your house being demolished.

ARTHUR

What?

FORD

It hardly makes any difference at this stage.

ARTHUR

My God it is! What the hell are they doing! We had an agreement!

FORD

Let 'em have their fun.

ARTHUR

Damn you and your fairy stories, they're smashing up my home!

He runs out of the bar.

ARTHUR (CONT'D)

(Shouting)

Stop you vandals! You home wreckers! You half-crazed Visigoths, stop will you!

FORD

Arthur! Come back. It's pointless! Hell, I'd better go after him. Barman, quickly, can you just give me four packets of peanuts?

BARMAN

Certainly, sir. There you are, two dollars and fifty cents.

Slaps another hundred dollar bill on the table.

FORD

Keep the change.

BARMAN

Are you serious sir? I mean, do you really think the world's going to end this afternoon?

FORD

Yes, in just over one minute and thirty five seconds.

BARMAN

Well, isn't there anything we can do?

FORD

No, nothing.

BARMAN

I always thought we were meant to lie down or build a doomsday bunker or something.

FORD

If you like, yes.

BARMAN

Will that help?

FORD

No. Excuse me, I've got to find my friend.

He exits hurriedly after Arthur.

BARMAN

Oh well then, last orders please!

**SCENE VI – OUTSIDE ARTHUR DENT'S HOUSE – AFTERNOON**

ARTHUR

(Yelling)

You pinstriped barbarians! I'll sue the council for every penny it's got! I'll have you hung, drawn and quartered, and whipped and boiled, and then I'll chop you up into little bits until…until…until you've had enough!

FORD

Arthur, don't bother, there isn't time, get over here, there's only ten seconds left!

ARTHUR

(Oblivious)

And then I'll do it some more! And when I've finished I will take all the little bits…and I will jump on them! And I will carry on jumping on them until I get blisters or I can think of something even more unpleasant to do, and then I'll…WHAT THE HELL'S THAT?

Mass pandemonium breaks out, people are shouting and running in every direction.

FORD

Arthur! Quick, over here!

ARTHUR

What the hell is it?

FORD

It's a fleet of Vogon spaceships, what do you think it is? Quick, you've got to get hold of this rod!

He shows Arthur his blinking Sens-0-Matic device.

ARTHUR

What do you mean, spaceships?

FORD

Just that, it's a Vogon constructor fleet.

ARTHUR

A what?

FORD

A Vogon constructor fleet, I picked up news of their arrival a few hours ago on my sub-ether radio.

ARTHUR

(Still yelling to be heard over din)

Ford, I don't think I can cope with anymore of this. I think I'll just go and have a little lie down somewhere.

FORD

No! Just stay here! Keep calm…and just take hold of...

(Lost in din)

INT. A STARBUCKS CAFÉ. CONTINUUOUS.

JELTZ (THROUGH SPEAKERS)

People of Earth, your attention please. This is Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council.

INT. A NIKE SHOE STORE. CONTINUUOUS.

JELTZ (VOICE ONLY)

(Matter of factly)

As you will no doubt be aware, the plans for the development of the outlying regions of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy require the building of a hyperspace express route through your star system and, regrettably, your planet is one of those scheduled for demolition. The process will take slightly less than two of your Earth minutes. Thank you very much.

Wild hubbub and widespread sheer panic spreads out across the globe.

INT. THE BAR. CONTINUUOUS.

The bar appears deserted.

JETLZ (CONT'D)

(Through an arcade game speaker)

There's no point in acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you've had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaints, and it's far too late to start making a fuss about it now.

PULL BACK FURTHER – the barman closes a clearly fortified door leading to an underground bunker.

JELTZ (CONT'D)

What do you mean you've never been to Alpha Centauri? Oh, for heaven's sake mankind it's only four light years away you know. I'm sorry, but if you can't be bothered to take an interest in local affairs that's your own lookout. Energize the demolition beams.

(To himself)

God, I don't know, apathetic bloody planet, I've no sympathy at all...

BIG SHOT. FROM SPACE. LOOKING DOWN ON EARTH 20

As all the Vogon ships simultaneously send down a beam of yellow light. Glowing fireballs travel down the beams toward Earth. On impact, they bore into the surface. The Earth collapses into itself, silent, unimpressively. Gone.

**SCENE VIII – INT. VOGON SPACESHIP – DAY**

Ford and Arthur are in the Dentrassi sleeping quarters. The lights are off. Ford and Arthur converse in mostly hushed tones.

FORD

I bought some peanuts.

ARTHUR

What?

FORD

If you've never been through a matter transference beam before you've probably lost some salt and protein. The beer you had should have cushioned your system a bit. How are you feeling?

ARTHUR

Like a military basic training - bits of me keep on passing out. If I asked you where the hell we were would I regret it?

FORD

We're safe.

ARTHUR

Good.

FORD

We're in a small galley cabin in one of the spaceships of the Vogon Constructor Fleet.

ARTHUR

Ah, this is obviously some strange usage of the word safe that I wasn't previously aware of. I'll have a look for the light. All right. How did we get here? We hitched a lift. Excuse me, are you trying to tell me that we just stuck out our thumbs and some bug-eyed monster stuck his head out and said 'Hi, fellas, hop right in, I can take you as far as the St. Luke's roundabout'?

FORD

Well, the thumb's an electronic sub-ether device, the roundabout's at Barnard's Star six light years away, but otherwise that's more or less right.

ARTHUR

And the bug-eyed monster?

FORD

Is green, yes.

ARTHUR

Fine. When can I go home?

FORD

You can't. Ah, I've found the light.

Presses a button.

ARTHUR

(In wonderment)

Good grief! Is this really the interior of a spaceship?

FORD

It certainly is. What do you think?

ARTHUR

It's a bit dirty, isn't it? I mean it looks a homeless person squatted here for two weeks.

FORD

What did you expect?

ARTHUR

Well I don't know. Gleaming control panels, flashing lights, computer screens. Not old mattresses.

FORD

These are the Dentrassi sleeping quarters.

ARTHUR

I thought you said they were called Vogons or something.

FORD

The Vogons run the ship. The Dentrassi are the cooks. They let us onboard.

ARTHUR

I'm confused.

FORD

Here, listen. It's alright that you're feeling overwhelmed, but remember this.

ARTHUR

What?

FORD

(Confidently pats Arthur on the shoulder)

Don't Panic.

ARTHUR

That's the first helpful or intelligible thing anybody's said to me all day.

FORD

That's why I do so well. Here's all you need to know about Vogons. If you want to get a lift from a Vogon: Forget it. They are one of the most unpleasant races in the Galaxy - not actually evil, but bad-tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous. They wouldn't even lift a finger to save their own grandmothers from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal without orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, questioned, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft soil for three months and recycled as fire lighter's. The best way to get a drink out of a Vogon is stick your finger down his throat, and the best way to irritate him is to feed his grandmother to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.

ARTHUR

What a strange race. How did we get a lift then?

FORD

That's the point, the information I used is out of date now. I'm doing the field research for the new revised edition of the _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_.

ARTHUR

What's that?

FORD

It's a highly advanced eBook and the Galaxy's best travel guide. Kind of like the Wikipedia for the Universe. However, I will have to now include a revision pointing out that since the Vogons have made so much money being professionally unpleasant, they can now afford to employ Dentrassi cooks. Which gives us a rather useful little loophole.

ARTHUR

Who are the Dentrassi?

FORD

The best cooks and the best drinks mixers, and they don't care about anything else. And they will always help hitch-hikers on board, partly because they like the company, but mostly because it annoys the Vogons. Which is exactly the sort of thing you need to know if you're an impoverished hitch-hiker trying to see the marvels of the Galaxy for less than thirty Altairian dollars a day. And that's my job. Fun, isn't it?

ARTHUR

It's amazing.

FORD

Unfortunately I got stuck on the Earth for rather longer than I intended. I came for a week and was stranded for fifteen years.

ARTHUR

But how did you get there in the first place?

FORD

Oh, easy, I got a lift with a teaser. You don't know what a teaser is, I'll tell you. Teasers are usually rich kids with nothing to do. They cruise around looking for planets which haven't made interstellar contact yet, and buzz them.

ARTHUR

Buzz them?

FORD

Yes. They find some isolated spot with very few people around, then land right by some poor unsuspecting soul whom no one's ever going to believe and then strut up and down in front of him wearing silly antennae on their head and making beep-beep noises and crop circles. Rather childish really.

ARTHUR

Ford, I don't know if this sounds like a silly question, but what am I doing here?

FORD

Well, you know that. I rescued you from the Earth.

ARTHUR

And what has happened to the Earth?

FORD

It's been disintegrated.

ARTHUR

Has it?

FORD

Yes, it just boiled away into space.

ARTHUR

Look. I'm a bit upset about that.

FORD

Yes, I can understand.

ARTHUR

So what do I do?

FORD

You come along with me and enjoy yourself.

Ford Prefect reaches into his satchel bag and brings out a canister of water with a small yellow leech-like fish.

FORD (CONT'D)

You'll need to have this fish in your ear.

ARTHUR

I beg your pardon?

A rather extraordinary noise starts playing over the P.A. It sounds like a combination of gargling, howling and sniffing.

ARTHUR

What's the devil's that?

FORD

Listen, it might be important.

ARTHUR

What?

FORD

It's the Vogon Captain making an announcement on the PA.

ARTHUR

But I can't speak Vogon!

FORD

You don't need to. Just put the fish in your ear, come on, it's only a little one.

ARTHUR

UuUUUUUUggh!

Ford Prefect proceeds to stick the small yellow leech-like fish into Arthur Dent's ear. It latches on like a lamprey. The previous sound abruptly transforms into the voice of Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz.

JELTZ

…should have a good time. Message repeat. This is your Captain speaking so stop whatever you're doing and pay attention. First of all I see from our sensors that we have a couple of hitch-hikers aboard our ship. Hello wherever you are, I just want to make it totally clear that you are not at all welcome. I worked hard to get where I am today, and I didn't become Captain of a Vogon Constructor ship simply so that I could turn it into a taxi service for degenerate freeloaders. I have sent out a search party, and as soon as they find you I will put you off the ship. If you're very lucky I might read you some of my poetry first. Secondly, we are about to jump into hyperspace for the journey to Barnard's Star. On arrival we will stay in dock for a seventy two hour refit, and no-one's to leave the ship during that time. I repeat, all planet leave is cancelled. I've just had an unhappy love affair, so I don't see why anyone else should have a good time. Message ends.

ARTHUR

Charming these Vogons. I wish I had a daughter so I could forbid her to marry one.

FORD

You wouldn't need to. They've got as much sex appeal as a road accident. And you'd better be prepared for the jump into hyperspace. It's unpleasantly like being drunk.

ARTHUR

Well what's so unpleasant about being drunk?

FORD

You ask a glass of water.

ARTHUR

Ford.

FORD

Yes?

ARTHUR

What's this fish doing in my ear?

FORD

Translating for you. Later you can look under Babel Fish in the book.

The Vogon spaceships jump to hyperspace.

ARTHUR

(A slurring distort)

What's happening?

FORD

(A slurring distort)

We're going into hyperspace.

ARTHUR

Ugggh! I'll never be cruel to a Vodka Martini again.

INT. VOGON SPACESHIP – DAY

FORD

So, what do you think?

ARTHUR

What an extraordinary book. But I still don't fully understand what the Babel Fish is doing in my ear?

FORD

It's probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy, absorbing all unconscious frequencies and then excreting telepathically a matrix formed from the conscious frequencies and nerve signals picked up from the speech centers of the brain; the practical upshot of which is that if you stick one in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language -the speech you hear is decoded from the brainwave matrix.

ARTHUR

That's amazing!

FORD

Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind bogglingly useful could evolve purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final clinching proof of the non-existence of God.

ARTHUR

Really?

FORD

The argument goes something like this: 'I refuse to prove that I exist' says God…'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing'. 'But', says Man, 'the Babel Fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It proves you exist, and so therefore you don't. QED'. 'Oh dear', says God, 'I hadn't thought of that' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. 'Oh, that was easy' says Man, and for an encore he proves that black is white and gets killed on the next zebra crossing. Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo's kidneys, but that didn't stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme of his best-selling book Well, That About Wraps It Up For God. Meanwhile, the poor Babel Fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different cultures and races, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.

ARTHUR

Well, how about that then.

FORD

Help me write the new edition.

ARTHUR

No, I want to go back to Earth again I'm afraid. Or its nearest equivalent.

FORD

You're turning down a hundred billion new worlds to explore.

ARTHUR

Did you get much useful material on Earth?

FORD

I was able to extend the entry, yes.

ARTHUR

Oh, let's see what it says in this edition then. Let's see. E…Earth... tap out the code there's the page. Oh it doesn't seem to have an entry.

FORD

Yes it does. See, right there at the bottom of the screen. Just under Eccentrica Gallumbits, the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon VI.

ARTHUR

What, there? Oh yes.

BOOK

Harmless.

ARTHUR

Is that all it's got to say? One word? Harmless? What the hell's that supposed to mean?

FORD

Well, there are a hundred billion stars in the Galaxy and a limited amount of space in the book. And no one knew much about the Earth of course.

ARTHUR

Well I hope you've managed to update that a little.

FORD

Yes, I transmitted a new entry off to the Editor. He had to trim it a bit, but it's still an improvement.

ARTHUR

What does it say now?

FORD

'Mostly harmless.'

ARTHUR

Mostly harmless?

FORD

That's the way it is. We're on a different scale now.

ARTHUR

OK Ford, I'm with you. I'm bloody well coming with you. Where are we now?

FORD

Not far from Barnard's Star. It's a beautiful place, and a sort of hyperspace junction. You can get virtually anywhere from there.

A Vogon guard is heard marching outside the hatchway.

FORD

That is, assuming that we actually get there.

The Vogon guard bangs on the steel door.

ARTHUR

What's that?

FORD

Well, if we're lucky it's just the Vogons come to throw us into space.

ARTHUR

And if we're unlucky?

FORD

If we're unlucky the Captain might want to read us some of his poetry first.

ARTHUR

Why is that a bad thing?

Ford Prefect begins to fortify the door to try and stop the Vogons from entering. Arthur Dent soon joins him.

FORD

Vogon poetry is, of course, the third worst in the Universe. The second worst is that of the Azgoths of Kria.

Arthur and Ford continue to struggle against the Vogon security team.

ARTHUR

(Looks quizzically)

FORD

During a recitation by their Poet Master Grunthos the Flatulent of his poem 'Ode to a Small Lump of Green Putty I found in My Armpit One Midsummer Morning' four of his audience died of internal hemorrhaging, and the President of the Mid-Galactic Arts Nobbling Council survived by gnawing one of his own legs off. Grunthos is reported to have been 'disappointed' by the poem's reception, and was about to embark on a reading of his twelve book epic entitled 'My Favorite Bathtime Gurgles' when his own major intestine, in a desperate attempt to save Life Kind, leapt straight up through his neck and throttled his brain.

**SCENE IX – INT. VOGON SPACESHIP BRIDGE – DAY**

Off Ford's apprehensive look we CUT TO...

INT. VOGON CONSTRUCTOR BRIDGE - CONTINUOUS

Arthur and Ford are strapped against two advanced interrogation chairs.

JELTZ

Oh freddled gruntbuggly!

Thy suppurations are to me as plerdled

gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee.

Ford WRITHES in pain, as does Arthur but less so.

JELTZ (CONTINUED)

Groop I implore thee my foonting turlingdromes,

And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindle werdles,

For otherwise I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with

My blurglecruncheon see if I don't.

Ford vibrates like he's having an epileptic seizure.

Arthur just looks like he has a migraine.

JELTZ (CONT'D)

So Earthlings. I present you with a simple choice. I was going to throw you straight out into the empty blackness of space to die horribly and slowly. But there is one way, one simple way in which you may save yourselves. Think very carefully, for you hold your very lives in your hands. Now choose! Either die in the vacuum of space or…tell me how good you thought my poem was.

FORD

I liked it.

VOGON

(Relaxing)

Oh good.

ARTHUR

Oh yes, I thought that some of the metaphysical imagery was really particularly effective.

VOGON

(Prompting)

Yes?

ARTHUR

Oh…and, er, interesting rhythmic devices too which seemed to counterpoint the... er...

FORD

…counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor of the…er…

ARTHUR

Humanity of the...er...

FORD

Vogonity.

ARTHUR

(Getting desperate)

Vogonity, sorry, of the poet's compassionate soul which contrives through the medium of the verse structure to sublimate this, transcend that, and come to terms with the fundamental dichotomies of the other, and one is left with a profound and vivid insight into…into…

FORD

…into whatever it was the poem was about!

(To Arthur)

Well done Arthur, that was very good.

VOGON

So what you're saying is that I write poetry because underneath my mean, callous, heartless exterior I really just want to be loved. Is that right?

FORD

(Laughing nervously)

Well I mean, yes, don't we all, deep down, you know...er...

VOGON

No, well you're completely wrong. I just write poetry to throw my mean, callous, heartless exterior into sharp relief: I'm going to throw you off the ship anyway. Guard! Take the prisoners to number three airlock and throw them out.

Ford and Arthur are grabbed while they struggle to get loose while Jeltz is speaking.

FORD

You can't throw us off into deep space, we're trying to write a book!

VOGON GUARD

Resistance is useless.

ARTHUR

I don't want to die now, I've still got a headache! I don't want to go to heaven with a headache, I'll be pissed off and wouldn't enjoy it.

(They are being urged further and further away)

FORD

You can't do this!

VOGON

Why not, you puny creature?

FORD

Oh 'Why not?' 'Why not?' Does there have to be a reason for everything? Why don't you just let us go on a mad impulse? Go on, live a little, surprise yourself…

The hatchway door closes.

JELTZ

(To himself)

'…counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor…' Huh, death's too good for them.

**SCENE X – VOGON SPACESHIP COORIDOR – DAY**

Ford and Arthur continue to struggle as they are dragged down the corridor.

ARTHUR

Ow, let go of me you brute!

FORD

Don't you worry, I'll think of something.

VOGON GUARD

Resistance is useless!

ARTHUR

I woke up this morning and thought I'd have a nice relaxed day, do a bit of reading, and pet the cat…it's now just after four in the afternoon and I'm already being thrown out of an alien spaceship five light years from the smoking remains of the Earth!

FORD

All right, just stop panicking.

ARTHUR

Who said anything about panicking? This is still just the culture shock. You wait till I've settled down and come to grips with things. Then I'll start panicking!

FORD

Arthur, you're getting hysterical, shut up!

VOGON GUARD

(Still shouting)

Resistance is useless!

FORD

You can shut up as well!

VOGON GUARD

Resistance is useless!

FORD

Oh give it a rest... do you really enjoy this sort of thing?

VOGON GUARD

Resistance is...What do you mean?

FORD

I mean does it give you a full satisfying life? Stomping around, shouting, pushing people out of spaceships?

VOGON GUARD

Well, the shift is good.

FORD

It'd have to be.

VOGON GUARD

But now you come to mention it, I suppose most of the actual parts are pretty lousy. Except some of the shouting I quite like.

(Shouts)

Resistance is...

FORD

Sure, yes, you're good at that, I can tell. But if it's mostly lousy then why do you do it? What is it? The girls? The leather? The machismo?

VOGON GUARD

Well…er, I don't know, I think I just sort of…do it really.

FORD

There Arthur, you think you've got problems...

ARTHUR

Yeah, this guy's still half throttling me…

FORD

Yeah, but try and understand his problem. Here he is, poor kid, his entire life's work is stamping around, throwing people off spaceships…

VOGON GUARD

And shouting…

FORD

…and shouting, sure…and he doesn't even know why he's doing it.

ARTHUR

(Followed by suppressed grunt of pain)

Sad.

VOGON GUARD

Well, now you put it like that I suppose...

FORD

Good kid…

VOGON GUARD

But all right, so what's the alternative?

FORD

Well, stop doing it of course.

VOGON GUARD

Mmmmmmmmm…well, doesn't sound that great to me.

FORD

Now wait a minute, that's just the start. There's more to it than what you see...

VOGON GUARD

No, I think if it's all the same to you I'd better just get you both shoved into this airlock and then go and get on with some other bits of shouting I've got to do.

FORD

(Renewed struggling)

But come on…now look

ARTHUR

Ow, stop that…

FORD

Hang on, there's music and art and things to tell you about yet! Aaggh!

VOGON GUARD

(Shouting)

Resistance is useless!

(Less volume)

You see, if I keep it up I can eventually get promoted to senior shouting officer, and there aren't usually many vacancies for non-shouting and non-pushing-people-about officers, so I think I'd better stick to what I know. But thanks for taking an interest. 'Bye now.

ARTHUR

Stop, don't do it.

FORD

(Desperate)

No, listen, there's a whole world you don't know anything about…here, how about this… 'Da, da da da da da, Daa da Dum' (First bar of the Epic Sax Guy) Doesn't that stir anything in you?

The airlock door opens.

VOGON GUARD

'Bye, I'll mention what you said to my aunt.

Ford and Arthur are shoved in as the airlock door closes.

FORD

Potentially bright kid I thought.

ARTHUR

We're trapped now, aren't we?

FORD

Errrrr…yes, we're trapped.

ARTHUR

Well, didn't you think of anything?

FORD

Oh yes, but unfortunately it rather involved being on the other side of the airtight hatchway they've just sealed behind us.

ARTHUR

So what happens next?

FORD

The hatchway in front of us will open automatically in a moment, and we'll shoot out into deep space and asphyxiate in about thirty seconds.

ARTHUR

So this is it. We're going to die.

FORD

Yes…except…No! Wait a minute, what's this switch?

ARTHUR

What? Where?

FORD

No, I was only fooling. We are going to die after all.

ARTHUR

You know, it's at times like this, when I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young.

FORD

Why, what did she tell you?

ARTHUR

I don't know, I didn't listen.

FORD

Huh! Terrific.

Ford and Arthur Dent shoot out into deep space like dumped trash.

EXT. BLACK VOID OF SPACE

A strange tennis shoe shaped white spaceship appears in a flicker of pseudo motion. Rescuing Ford and Arthur. The song Heart of Gold by Neil Young starts playing.

**SCENE X – INT. HEART OF GOLD– DAY**

Inside the spaceship it looks very strange. Nothing is consistent. It's sheer chaos.

COMPUTER

Infinity minus two seconds, Infinity minus four seconds…Alien body intake at entry bay two. High Improbability Factor…checking. Improbability Co-efficient Infinity minus one. Co-efficient factorable. Factorise! Alien life forms carbon based. Intake sector Galactic Co-ordinate ZZ9 plural z alpha…

FORD

(Gasping)

There…you…are. I told you... I'd think of something…

ARTHUR

(Gasping)

Oh, sure.

FORD

Bright idea…of mine…to find a… passing spaceship…and get rescued by it…

ARTHUR

Oh come on…the chances against it were astronomical.

FORD

Don't disprove it...it worked…Now…where are we?

ARTHUR

Well I hardly like to say this, but it looks like a catwalk on the Jersey Shore.

FORD

God I'm relieved to hear you say that.

ARTHUR

Why?

FORD

Because I thought I must be going crazy.

ARTHUR

Perhaps we weren't rescued after all. Perhaps we died.

FORD

What's that meant to mean?

ARTHUR

When I was young I used to have this nightmare about dying. I used to lie awake at night screaming. All my school friends went to heaven or hell, and I was sent to New Jersey.

FORD

Perhaps we'd better ask somebody what's going on. How about that man over there?

ARTHUR

The one with the five heads crawling up the wall?

FORD

(Only a suspicion of doubt in his voice, but still unphased)

Er…yes

ARTHUR

Sir, excuse me, er…excuse me…

A man with five heads is crawling up a wall. He responds with a bellowing elephant-like noise.

ARTHUR

You know, if this is New Jersey, there's something very odd about it…

FORD

You mean the way the sea stays steady as a rock and the buildings keep washing up and down? Yes, I thought that was odd…

TRILLIAN

(Cutting through the increasingly dream-like quality of everything going on)

Two to the power of one hundred thousand to one against and falling…

ARTHUR

What was that?

FORD

Sounds like a measurement of probability…hey that couldn't mean...no.

ARTHUR

What?

FORD

I'm not sure, but it means we definitely are on some kind of spaceship.

New Jersey seems to be melt away, the stars are swirl, there's a dustbowl, then snow, Arthur's legs drift off into the sunset, then left arm comes off.

ARTHUR

(Alarmed)

Ford, you're turning into a penguin, stop it.

TRILLIAN

Two to the power of seventy-five thousand to one against and falling…

FORD

(Shouting. There is a very slight quack to his voice)

Hey, who are you? Where are you? What's going on and is there any way of stopping it?

TRILLIAN

Please relax, you are perfectly safe.

FORD

That's not the point! The point is that I am now a perfectly safe penguin and my colleague here is rapidly running out of limbs!

ARTHUR

(Nonchalantly)

It's all right, I've got them back now.

TRILLIAN

Two to the power of fifty thousand to one against and falling.

ARTHUR

Admittedly, they're longer than I usually like them, but…

FORD

Isn't there anything you feel you ought to be telling us?!

TRILLIAN

Welcome to the Starship Heart of Gold. Please do not be alarmed by anything you see or hear around you. You are bound to feel some initial ill-effects as you have been rescued from certain death at an improbability level of two to the power of two hundred and sixty-seven thousand, seven hundred and nine to one against, possibly much higher. We are now cruising at a level of two to the power of twenty-five thousand to one again stand falling, and we will be restoring normality as soon as we are sure what is normal anyway, thank you. Two to the power of twenty thousand to one against and falling.

FORD

Arthur, this is fantastic, we've been picked up by a ship with the new Infinite Improbability Drive, this is really incredible, Arthur…Arthur, what's happening?

Arthur Dent looks exceptionally confused.

ARTHUR

Ford, there's an infinite number of monkeys outside who want to talk to us about this script for Hamlet they've worked out. What did she say this ship was powered by?

FORD

The Infinite Improbability Drive.

ARTHUR

The what?

FORD

The Infinite Improbability Drive.

ARTHUR

What's that?

FORD

It's is a wonderful new method of crossing interstellar distances in a few seconds, without all that tedious mucking about in hyperspace. The principle of generating small amounts of finite improbability by simply hooking the logic circuits of a B amble weeny 57 sub-meson brain to an atomic vector plotter suspended in a strong Brownian motion producer…

ARTHUR

A what?

FORD

Oh, uh, like a cup hot of tea.

ARTHUR

Ah.

FORD

Anyway, those principles were of course well understood. We used to use such generators to break the ice at parties by making all the molecules in the hostess's under-garments simultaneously leap one foot to the left, in accordance with the theory of indeterminacy.

ARTHUR

Didn't the physicists have anything to say about that?

FORD

Oh, of course they did. Many respectable physicists said that they weren't going to stand for that sort of thing, half said it was because it was a debasement of science…

ARTHUR

And the other half.

FORD

…Mostly because they didn't get invited to those sort of parties.

ARTHUR

I see.

FORD

Another thing they couldn't stand was the perpetual failure they encountered in trying to construct a machine which could generate the infinite improbability field needed to flip a spaceship between the furthest stars, and in the end they grumpily announced that such a machine was virtually impossible.

ARTHUR

But they were obviously wrong.

FORD

Exactly! One day, a student who had been left to sweep up the lab after a particularly unsuccessful party found himself reasoning this way: if such a machine is a virtual impossibility then it must logically be a finite improbability. So all I have to do in order to make one is to work out exactly how improbable it is, then feed that figure into the finite improbability generator, give it a fresh cup of really hot tea and turn it on. He did this, and was rather startled to discover that he had managed to create the long sought after Infinite Improbability generator out of thin air.

ARTHUR

Extraordinary. What ever happened to him

FORD

Oh, he was of course given the Galactic Institute's Prize for Extreme Cleverness…

ARTHUR

Good for him.

FORD

But he got hanged by a rampaging mob of respectable physicists who had finally realized that the one thing they really couldn't stand was a smartass.

ARTHUR

Poor man.

**SCENE XI – HEART OF GOLD BRIDGE – DAY**

TRILLIAN

Five to one against and falling…four to one against and falling…three to one…two…one…Probability factor of one to one... we have normality...I repeat we have normality…anything you still can't cope with is therefore your own problem. Please relax. You will be sent for soon.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Who are they, Trillian?

TRILLIAN

Just a couple of guys we picked up in open space. Sector ZZ9 plural Z alpha.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Yeah, well that's a very sweet thought, Trillian, but do you really think it's wise under the circumstances? I mean here we are on the run and everything, we've got the police of half the Galaxy after us and we stop to pick up hitch-hikers. OK, so ten out often for style, but minus several million for good thinking, eh?

TRILLIAN

Zaphod, they were floating unprotected in open space…you didn't want them to die did you?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Well, not as such no, but…

TRILLIAN

Anyway I didn't pick them up. The ship did it all by itself.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

What…?

TRILLIAN

Whilst we were in Improbability Drive.

TRILLIAN

That's incredible.

TRILLIAN

No, just very, very improbable. Look don't worry about the aliens, they're just a couple of guys I expect. I'll send the robot down to check them out. Hey, Marvin…

MARVIN

(Lugubrious robot voice)

I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Oh God…

TRILLIAN

(Nicely)

Well here's something to occupy you and keep your mind off things.

MARVIN

It won't work, I have an exceptionally large mind.

TRILLIAN

Marvin!

MARVIN

All right, what do you want me to do?

TRILLIAN

Go down to number two entry bay and bring the two aliens up here under surveillance.

MARVIN

Just that?

TRILLIAN

Yes.

MARVIN

I won't enjoy it.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

She's not asking you to enjoy it - just do it will you?

MARVIN

All right, I'll do it.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Good…great…thank you.

MARVIN

I'm not upsetting you at all am I?

TRILLIAN

No, no, Marvin, that's just fine, really.

MARVIN

I wouldn't like to think I was making you upset.

TRILLIAN

No, don't worry about that, you just act as comes naturally and everything will be fine.

MARVIN

You're sure you don't mind?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

No, no, it's all just part of life.

MARVIN

Life! Don't talk to me about life.

Marvin exits.

INT. HEART OF GOLD BRIDGE

A large TV screen flicks on and Zaphod Beeblebrox is watching a news broadcast about himself.

TV HOST

…and news reports brought to you here on the sub-ether wave band, broadcasting around the Galaxy around the clock. And we'll be saying a big hello to all intelligent life forms everywhere…and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys. And of course, the big news story tonight is the sensational theft of the new Improbability Drive prototype ship, by none other than Zaphod Beeblebrox. And the question everyone's asking is...has the Big Z finally flipped? Beeblebrox, the man who invented the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, ex-con artist, part-time Galactic President, once described by Eccentrica Gallumbits as the Best Bang since the Big One, and recently voted the Worst Dressed Sentient Being in the Universe for the seventh time running…has he got an answer this time? We asked his private brain care specialist, Gag Halfrunt.

GAG HALFRUNT

Well look, Zaphod's just this guy you know…

Trillian turns off the TV with a remote control.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

What did you turn it off for Trillian?

TRILLIAN

Zaphod, I've just thought of something.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Yeah?

TRILLIAN

We picked those couple of guys up in sector…Zaphod, please take your hand off me. And the other one. Thank you and the other one.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

I grew that one especially for you, Trillian, you know that? Took me six months but it was worth every minute.

TRILLIAN

…We picked them up in Sector ZZ9 plural Z alpha. Does that mean anything to you?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

On the whole, no.

TRILLIAN

It's where you originally picked me up. Let me show it to you on the screen.

She presses a button to highlight the sector

TRILLIAN (CONT'D)

Right there.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Hey, right. I don't believe it. How the hell did we come to be there?

TRILLIAN

Improbability Drive. We pass through every point in the Universe, you know that.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Yes, but picking them up there is just too strange a coincidence. I want to work this out. Computer!

COMPUTER

I want you to know that whatever your problem, I am here to help you solve it.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Er, look, I think I'll just use a piece of paper.

COMPUTER

Sure thing, I understand. If you ever need…

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Shut up!

COMPUTER

OK, OK…

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Trillian, listen. The ship picked them up all by itself, right?

TRILLIAN

Right.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

So that already gives us a high improbability factor. It picked them up in that particular space sector, which gives us another high improbability factor. Plus - they were not wearing spacesuits, so we picked them up during a crucial thirty second period.

TRILLIAN

I've got a note of that factor here.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Put it all together and we have a total improbability of...well, it's pretty vast but it's not infinite. At what point did we actually pick them up?

TRILLIAN

At infinite improbability level.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Which leaves us a very large improbability gap still to be filled. Look, they're on their way up here now aren't they, with that bloody robot? Can we pick them up on any monitor cameras?

TRILLIAN

I should think so.

Arthur is walking next to Marvin down the hallway with Ford behind them.

MARVIN

…and then of course I've got this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side…

ARTHUR

Is that SO?

MARVIN

Oh yes. I mean I've asked for them to be replaced but no one ever listens…

ARTHUR

I can imagine.

TRILLIAN

(Slightly excited)

Oh God, I don't believe it...

FORD

(To himself)

Well, well, well, Zaphod Beeblebrox.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

(Wildly excited)

I don't believe it! This is just too amazing! Look, Trillian, I'll just handle this...is anything wrong?

TRILLIAN

I think I'll just wait in the cabin. I'll be back in a minute.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Oh, this is going to be great. I'm going to be so unbelievably cool about it, it would flummox a Vegan Snow Lizard. This is terrific. What real cool. Several million points out often for style.

TRILLIAN

Well, you enjoy yourself, Zaphod. I don't see what's so great myself. I'll go and listen for the police on the sub-ether wave band.

She exits.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Right. Which is the most nonchalant chair to be discovered working at. O.K.

Zaphod lounges coolly on a chair looking nonchalant.

MARVIN

I suppose you'll want to see the aliens now. Do you want me to sit in a corner and rust or just fall apart where I'm standing?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Show them in please, Marvin.

Arthur and Ford Enter.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX (CONT'D)

(Then with great cool)

Ford, hi, how are you? Glad you could drop in.

FORD

(Trying to out-cool him)

Zaphod, great to see you, you're looking well. The extra arm suits you. Nice ship you've stolen.

ARTHUR

(Astonished)

You mean you know this guy?

FORD

Know him! He's…Oh, Zaphod, this is a friend of mine, Arthur Dent. I saved him when his planet blew up.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Oh sure, hi, Arthur, glad you could make it.

FORD

And, Arthur, this is my…

ARTHUR

(Sharply)

We've met.

FORD

(Astonished)

What?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

(Guilty start of surprise)

Oh, er…have we? Hey…

FORD

What do you mean you've met? This is Zaphod Beeblebrox from Betelgeuse Five you know, not bloody Will Smith from Philadelphia.

ARTHUR

I don't care, we've met, haven't we Zaphod, or should I say, Phil?

FORD

What?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

You'll have to remind me, I've a terrible memory for species. Hey, Ford...

ARTHUR

(Doggedly)

It was at a party.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

I rather doubt it.

FORD

Cool your jets Arthur will you?

ARTHUR

A party six months ago, on Earth, Boise, Nampa?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Er…Oh, er…that party.

FORD

Zaphod, you don't mean to say you've been on that miserable little planet as well, do you?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

No, of course not. Well, I may just have dropped in briefly...on my way somewhere.

FORD

What is all this, Arthur?

ARTHUR

At this party there was a girl. I'd had my eye on her for weeks…beautiful, charming, devastatingly intelligent, everything I'd been saving myself up for, and just when I'd finally managed to get her for myself for a few tender moments this friend of yours barges up and says 'Hey doll, is this guy boring you, come and talk to me, I'm from a different planet'. I never saw her again.

FORD

Zaphod?

ARTHUR

Yes, he only had the two arms and the one head and he called himself Phil, but…

The door opens. Trillian enters carrying a tray of drinks.

TRILLIAN

…but you must admit that he did actually turn out to be from a differentp lanet, Arthur.

ARTHUR

Good God, it's her! Tricia McMillan, what are you doing here?

TRILLIAN

Same as you, Arthur, I hitched a ride. After all, with a degree in math and another in astrophysics it was either that or back to the cubicle on Monday. Sorry I missed that Wednesday lunch date, but I was in a black hole all morning.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Oh God…Ford. This is Trillian, hi, Trillian, this is my semi-cousin Ford, who shares three of the same mothers as me, hi. Trillian, is this sort of thing going to happen every time we use the Infinite Improbability Drive?

TRILLIAN

Very probably I'm afraid.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Zaphod Beeblebrox, this is a very large drink. Hi.

**SCENE XII – HEART OF GOLD – DAY**

FORD

So, Zaphod, I gotta ask you this. What the hell are you doing out here?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

To be honest cous, I didn't expect to end up here at all. We're searching for the planet Magrathea.

FORD

Magrathea is a myth! A fairy story! It's what parents tell their kids at night when they want them to grow up to become economists!

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Computer?

COMPUTER

Hi there, this is Eddie your shipboard computer, and I'm feeling just great, guys, and I know I'm just going to get a bundle of kicks out of any program you care to run through me...

FORD

Is this necessary?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Computer, tell us again what our current trajectory is.

COMPUTER

A real pleasure fella. We are currently in orbit at an altitude of...three hundred miles…around the legendary planet of Magrathea. Golly!

FORD

Proving nothing. I wouldn't trust that computer to calculate my weight.

COMPUTER

I can do that for you, sure…

FORD

No thank you.

COMPUTER

I can even work out your personality problems to ten decimal places, if it'll help.

TRILLIAN

Zaphod, we should have dawn coming up any minute now on the planet, whatever it turns out to be.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

OK, OK, let's just take a look at it. Computer.

COMPUTER

Hi there! What can I...

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Just shut up and give us external vision on the monitors, dim the lights on the Bridge.

On the screen, a large looming dark planet appears with the sunlight peaking over the horizon.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX (CONT'D)

There…the dark mass you see on the screens now is the planet of Magrathea…

FORD

Or whatever…

TRILLIAN

I wonder if the Vikings had this trouble?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

(Getting increasingly exasperated)

Who?

TRILLIAN

Sorry, just an esoteric Earth reference. He discovered a continent which went onto cause a bit of trouble. Arthur will tell you about it…Arthur?

ARTHUR

(As if he's been day-dreaming)

What?

TRILLIAN

You've been very quiet Arthur?

ARTHUR

Yes, I always find it very relaxing listening to other people arguing when I haven't a clue what they're talking about. The view's a bit dull, isn't it? Presumably it becomes absolutely enchanting later on.

ZAPHOD

(Who's trying to conjure up some sort of drama)

We are now traversing the night side. The surface of the planet is three hundred miles below us. In a moment we should see…there!…The Fires of Dawn!…the twin Suns of Soulianis and Rahm…

Two suns appear to give off a fantastic unearthly sunrise…

FORD

Or whatever...

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Soulianis and Rahm, two ancient furnaces of light, creeping over the black horizon…It's fantastic, you've got to admit that.

FORD

(Flatly, Sarcastically)

It looks fantastic.

ARTHUR

(Quietly, aside to Trillian)

Tricia, I feel I may be missing the point of something.

TRILLIAN

Well, according to what Zaphod's told me, Magrathea is a legendary planet from way back, which no one seriously believes in. Bit like Atlantis, except that the legends say the Magratheans used to manufacture planets.

FORD

Well, even supposing it is...

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

It is.

FORD

…which it isn't, what do you want with it anyway? I mean I take it you're not here for the sheer industrial archaeology of it all. What is it you're after?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Well it's partly the curiosity, partly a sense of adventure, but mostly I think it's the fame and the money.

FORD

It's just a dead planet!

ARTHUR

The suspense is killing me. Is it safe?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Magrathea's been dead for five million years. Of course it's safe. Even the ghosts will have settled down and raised families by now.

A fanfare is heard and a five million year old hologram appears. The voice is outwardly pleasant but actually rather cold and forbidding.

SLARTIBARDFAST

Greetings to you...

ALL

What's that?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Computer!

COMPUTER

Hi there!

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

What is it?

COMPUTER

Oh, just some five million year old hologram recording that's being broadcast at us.

SLARTIBARDFAST

This is a recorded announcement as I'm afraid we're all out at the moment. The Commercial Council of Magrathea thanks you for your esteemed visit...

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

A voice from ancient Magrathea!

FORD

OK, OK.

SLARTIBARDFAST

…but regrets that the entire planet is temporarily closed for business. Thank you. If you would like to leave your name and a planet where you can be contacted kindly speak when you hear the tone.

A beep like from an old answering machine is heard.

TRILLIAN

They want to get rid of us. What do we do?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

It's just a recording, keep going. Got that computer?

COMPUTER

I got it.

A second hologram of the same person appears.

SLARTIBARDFAST

We would like to assure you that as soon as our business is resumed announcements will be made in all fashionable magazines and color supplements, when our clients will once again be able to select from all that's best in contemporary geography. Meanwhile we thank our clients for their kind interest and would ask them to leave now.

ARTHUR

Well, I suppose we'd better be going then hadn't we?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Shhhh! There's absolutely nothing to be worried about.

ARTHUR

Then why's everyone so tense?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

They're just interested. We keep going.

A third hologram of the same person appears and starts playing.

SLARTIBARDFAST

(Getting quite cold now)

It is most gratifying that your enthusiasm for our planet continues unabated and so we would like to assure you that the guided missiles currently converging with your ship are part of a special service we extend to all of our most enthusiastic clients, and the fully armed nuclear warheads are of course merely a courtesy detail. We look forward to your visit should you survive. Thank you.

ARTHUR

Listen, if that's their sales pitch, what must it be like in the complaints department?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Hey, this is terrific, it means we really must be onto something if they're trying to kill us.

ARTHUR

Terrific.

TRILLIAN

You mean there is someone down there after all?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

No, the whole defense system must be automatic, but the question is why…

ARTHUR

But what are we going to do?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Just keep cool.

ARTHUR

(Horrified)

Is that all?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

No, we're also going to take evasive action. Computer, what evasive action can we take?

COMPUTER

Er, none I'm afraid guys.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

...or something.

COMPUTER

There seems to be something jamming my guidance systems. Impact minus thirty seconds.

Alarm bells and sirens go off.

COMPUTER (CONT'D)

Sorry, I didn't mean to do that. Please call me Eddie if it will help you relax.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Right. Errr. Look, we've got to get manual control of this ship.

TRILLIAN

Can you fly her?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

No, can you?

TRILLIAN

No.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Ford?

FORD

No.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Fine. We'll do it together.

ARTHUR

I can't either.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

I'd guessed that. Computer, I want full manual control now.

COMPUTER

You got it. Good luck guys, impact minus twenty seconds.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

OK Ford, full retro thrust and ten degrees starboard.

EXT. HEART OF GOLD.

The rocket engines flare as the ship hurriedly evades the incoming missiles. Chaff flares and other counter measures are activated but fail to divert the missiles from their course.

INT. HEART OF GOLD BRIDGE

TRILLIAN

We're veering too fast!

FORD

I can't hold her, she's going into a spin!

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Dive, dive!

COMPUTER

Impact minus fifteen seconds, guys.

Bits and pieces of equipment are flung around the room.

ARTHUR

The rockets are still homing in, you can't shake them. We're going to die.

COMPUTER

(Starts to sing 'You'll never walk alone' in his very metallic voice)

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Shut that bloody computer up!

(But it continues)

TRILLIAN

Zaphod, can we stabilize at X zero zero 547 by splitting our flight path tangentially across the summit vector of 9GX78 with a five degree inertial correction?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

What? Yes, I expect so, just do it.

(Mutters)

And God forgive you if you're only bluffing.

TRILLIAN

Here we go.

FORD

Hey, where did you learn a stunt like that Trillian?

TRILLIAN

Going round St. Luke's Corner on a moped.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

What?

FORD

It's another Earth reference.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Tell me later.

ARTHUR

It's no good, the missiles are swinging round after us and gaining fast. We are quite definitely going to die.

COMPUTER

(Briefly interrupting his song)

Impact minus five seconds.

ARTHUR

Why doesn't anyone turn on this Improbability Drive thing?

TRILLIAN

Don't be silly, you can't do that.

ARTHUR

Why not? There's nothing to lose at this stage.

TRILLIAN

Does anyone know why Arthur can't turn on the Improbability Drive?

COMPUTER

Impact minus one second, it's been great knowing you guys, God bless.

TRILLIAN

I said does anyone know…

Arthur pushes the button which activates the Infinite Improbability Drive. There's a tremendous explosion which fairly quickly transforms itself into a little dribble of low intensity light.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

What the hell happened?

ARTHUR

Well, I was just saying, there's this switch here you see and…

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Where are we Trillian?

TRILLIAN

Exactly where we were I think.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Then what's happened to the missiles?

FORD

Er, well according to this screen they've just turned into a bowl of petunias and a very surprised looking whale.

COMPUTER

At an improbability factor of eight million, seven hundred and sixty seven thousand, one hundred and twenty eight to one against.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Did you think of that Earthman?

ARTHUR

Well, all I did was…

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

That's very good thinking, you know that? You just saved our lives.

ARTHUR

Oh it was nothing, really…

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Oh was it? Well, forget it. OK. Computer, take us in to land.

ARTHUR

Well, I say it was nothing...I mean obviously it was something, I was just trying to say it's not worth making too much of a fuss about...I mean just saving everybody's life…

FORD

I wonder what the bowl of petunia's was thinking?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Why do you ask?

FORD

Well, it's not a very tenable place for a bowl petunia's is it?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

I guess not. I suppose that we'd know a lot more about the universe if we knew what it was thinking though.

EXT. SPACE AROUND THE HEART OF GOLD

BOWL OF PETUNIA'S POV

BOWL OF PETUNIA'S

Oh no, not again.

Pullback, zoom in through a porthole to follow the trajectory of the falling Sperm Whale.

WHALE

Ah! What's happening? Er, excuse me, who am I? Hello? Why am I here? What's my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I? Calm down, get a grip now. Oh, this is an interesting sensation…what is it? It's a sort of yawning tingling sensation in my…my…well I suppose I'd better start finding names for things if I want to make any headway in what for the sake of what I shall call an argument I shall call the world, so let's call it my stomach. So...a yawning tingling sensation in my stomach. Good. Ooooh, it's getting quite strong. And hey, what about this whistling roaring sound going past what I'm suddenly going to call my head? Head, that sounds good, yeah, head, good solid ring to it...and the whistling roaring sound, that can be wind...is that a good name? It'll do...perhaps I can find a better name for it later when I've found out what it's for, because there certainly seems to be a hell of a lot of it. Hey, what's this thing, this…let's call it a tail…yeah, tail, hey I can really thrash it about pretty good can't I? Wow. Wow. Hey. Doesn't seem to achieve much but I'll probably find out what it's for later on. Now - have I built up any coherent picture of things yet? No. Oh. Hey, this is really exciting, so much to find out about, so much to look forward to, I'm quite dizzy with anticipation...or is it the wind? Hey, there really is a lot of that now isn't there? And wow, what's this thing suddenly coming towards me very fast? Very very fast...so big and flat and wide it needs a big wide sounding word…like round…round…ground! That's it, ground! I wonder if it will be friends with me?

The whale hits the ground and a small mushroom cloud of dust erupts from the crater as the whale is vaporized upon impact. Meanwhile, the starship has landed on the surface of Magrathea.

INT. HEART OF GOLD BRIDGE

TRILLIAN

Hey, my white mice have escaped!

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Nuts to your white mice.

EXT. HEART OF GOLD

The ship lands on the surface of Magrathea

INT. HEART OF GOLD BRIDGE

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

(Very efficiently)

OK, run atmospheric checks on the planets.

FORD

Are we taking this robot with us?

MARVIN

(Dejectedly)

Don't feel you have to take any notice of me please.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Oh, Marvin the Paranoid Android, yeah, we'll take him.

TRILLIAN

What are you supposed to do with a manically depressed robot?

MARVIN

You think you've got problems. What are you supposed to do if you are a manically depressed robot? No, don't try and answer that, I'm fifty thousand times more intelligent than you and even I don't know the answer. It gives me a headache just trying to think down to your level.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Well? What's the result?

COMPUTER VOICES

(All together)

It's OK but it smells a bit.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

OK everybody, let's go.

COMPUTER

(His voice has undergone a radical change and now sounds like a prep school matron)

Good afternoon boys.

ARTHUR

What's that?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Oh. That's the computer. I discovered it had an emergency backup personality which I thought might be marginally preferable.

COMPUTER

Now, this is going to be your first day on a strange planet, so I want you all wrapped up snug and warm and no playing with any naughty bug-eyed monsters.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

I'm sorry, I think we'd be better off with a calculator.

COMPUTER

Right, who said that?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Will you open up the exit hatch please, computer?

COMPUTER

Not until whoever said that owns up.

FORD

Oh God.

COMPUTER

Come on.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Computer…

COMPUTER

I'm waiting. I can wait all day if necessary.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Computer, if you don't open that exit hatch this moment I shall go straight to your major data banks with a very large axe and give you are programming you'll never forget, is that clear?

Pause.

COMPUTER

I can see this relationship is something we're all going to have to work at.

The hatch opens. A light breeze is blowing.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Thank you, let's go.

They all exit.

COMPUTER

It'll all end in tears, I know it.

Hatch closes behind them.

ARTHUR

It's fantastic!

FORD

Desolate hole if you ask me.

TRILLIAN

It's bloody cold. It all looks so stark and dreary.

ARTHUR

I think it's absolutely fantastic! It's only just getting through to me...a whole alien world, millions of light years from home. Pity it's such a dump though. Where's Zaphod?

ZAPHOD

(Calling from a distance)

Hey! Just beyond this ridge you can see the remains of an ancient city.

FORD

What does it look like?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Bit of a dump. Come on over. Oh and watch out for all the bits of whale meat.

ARTHUR

Do you realize that robot can hum like Pink Floyd? What else can you do Marvin?

MARVIN

Rock and roll?

TRILLIAN

I wish I knew where my mice were.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

(Approaching a doorway)

OK, I've found a way in.

ARTHUR

In? In what?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Down to the interior of the planet - that's where we have to go. Where no man has trod these five million years, into the very depths of time itself…Can it, Marvin.

ARTHUR

Why underground?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Well according to the legends the Magratheans lived most of their lives underground.

ARTHUR

Why, did the surface become too polluted or overpopulated?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

No, I think they just didn't like it very much.

TRILLIAN

Zaphod, are you sure you know what you're doing? We've been attacked once already you know.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Look, I promise you, the live population of this planet is nil plus the four of us.

TRILLIAN

And two white mice.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

And two white mice if you insist.

FORD

Come on, let's go if we're going.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Er, hey, Earthman…

ARTHUR

Arthur.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Could you sort of keep the robot with you and guard this end of the passageway, OK?

ARTHUR

Guard, what from? You just said there's no one here.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Yeah, well just for safety OK?

ARTHUR

Whose? Yours or mine?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Good lad. OK, here we go.

ARTHUR

Well I hope you all have a really miserable time.

MARVIN

Don't worry, they will.

**SCENE XIII – INT. UNDERGROUND TUNNELS – DAY**

TRILLIAN

This is really spooky.

FORD

Any idea what these strange symbols on the wall are, Zaphod?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

I think they're probably just strange symbols of some kind.

FORD

Look at all these galleries of derelict equipment just lying about…does anyone know what happened to this place in the end? Why did the Magratheans die out?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Something to do I suppose.

FORD

I wish I had two heads like yours, Zaphod. I could have hours of fun banging them against a wall.

TRILLIAN

Shine the torch over here.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Where, here?

TRILLIAN

Well, we aren't the first beings to go down this corridor in five million years then.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

What do you mean?

TRILLIAN

Look, fresh mouse droppings.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Oh, your bloody mice.

TRILLIAN

(Nervous)

What's that light down the corridor?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

It's just flashlight reflection.

FORD

This stuff must be worth millions you know, even if we don't find any actual money...

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

It'll be there. Trust me.

FORD

Trust you? Zaphod my old mate, I'd trust you from about as far as I could comfortably take your appendix out.

TRILLIAN

There's definitely something happening down there…

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

No…

TRILLIAN

Listen!

**SCENE XIV – MAGRATHEA – EVENING**

Two suns have just set majestically.

ARTHUR

Night's falling. Look robot, the stars are coming out.

MARVIN

I know, wretched isn't it.

ARTHUR

But that sunset. I've never seen anything like it in my wildest dreams…the two suns...it was like mountains of fire boiling into space.

MARVIN

I've seen it. It's rubbish.

ARTHUR

We only ever had the one sun at home. I came from a planet called Earth you know.

MARVIN

I know, you keep going on about it. It sounds awful.

ARTHUR

Ah no, it was a beautiful place.

MARVIN

Did it have oceans?

ARTHUR

Oh yes, great wide rolling blue oceans.

MARVIN

Can't bear oceans.

ARTHUR

(Sigh)

Tell me, do you get on well with other robots?

MARVIN

Hate them. Where are you going?

ARTHUR

I think I'll just take a short walk. Don't blame you.

SLARTIBARDFAST

Good evening...

ARTHUR

Aaaah! Who...?

(The next speaker is a man called Slartibartfast. He is getting on for elderly and speaks quietly, not unkindly. He is not quite as vague as he pretends)

SLARTIBARDFAST (CONT'D)

You choose a cold night to visit our dead planet…

ARTHUR

Who…who are you?

SLARTIBARDFAST

My name is not important. I...er...you startled me. Do not be alarmed, I will not harm you.

ARTHUR

But you shot at us. There were missiles.

SLARTIBARDFAST

Merely an automatic system. Ancient computers ranged in the long caves deep in the bowels of the planet tick away the dark millennia, and the ages hang heavy on their dusty data banks. I think they take the occasional potshot to relieve the monotony. I'm a great fan of science you know.

ARTHUR

Really...?

SLARTIBARDFAST

Oh yes.

ARTHUR

Ah.

SLARTIBARDFAST

(He can't work out who's meant to take the lead in this conversation)

Er…You seem ill at ease.

ARTHUR

Yes. No disrespect, but I gathered you were all dead.

SLARTIBARDFAST

Dead? No, we've only slept.

ARTHUR

Slept?!

SLARTIBARDFAST

Yes, through the economic recession you see.

ARTHUR

What?

SLARTIBARDFAST

Well five million years ago the Galactic economy collapsed, and seeing that custom built planets are something of a luxury commodity, you see...you know we built planets do you?

ARTHUR

Well yes, I'd sort of gathered…

SLARTIBARDFAST

Fascinating trade…doing the coastlines was always my favorite, used to have endless fun doing all the little fiddly bits in fjords...so anyway, the recession came so we decided to sleep through it. We just programmed the computers to revive us when it was all over…they were index linked to the Galactic stock market prices you see, so that we'd be revived when everybody else had rebuilt the economy enough to be able to afford our rather expensive services again.

ARTHUR

Good God, that's a pretty unpleasant way to behave isn't it?

SLARTIBARDFAST

Is it? I'm sorry, I'm a bit out of touch. Is this robot yours?

MARVIN

No, I belong to myself.

ARTHUR

If you call it a robot. It's more a sort of electronic sulking machine.

SLARTIBARDFAST

Bring it.

ARTHUR

What?

SLARTIBARDFAST

You must come with me, great things are afoot…you must come now or you will be late.

ARTHUR

Late? What for?

SLARTIBARDFAST

What is your name, human?

ARTHUR

Dent. Arthur Dent.

SLARTIBARDFAST

Late, as in the late Dentarthurdent. It's a sort of threat you see. Never been very good at them myself, but I'm told they can be terribly effective.

ARTHUR

All right, where do we go?

SLARTIBARDFAST

In my air car. We are going deep into the bowels of the planet, where even now our race is being revived from its five million year slumber. Magrathea awakes!

The air car shoots forward.

ARTHUR

Excuse me, what is your name by the way?

SLARTIBARDFAST

My name is...my name is Slartibartfast.

ARTHUR

(Trying not to laugh)

Did…did I hear that correctly?

SLARTIBARDFAST

Slartibartfast.

Fading…

ARTHUR

Slartibartfast?

SLARTIBARDFAST

I said it wasn't important.

Fade out.

**SCENE XV – MAGRATHEA – NIGHT**

INT. - PLANET FACTORY - NIGHT

SLARTIBARDFAST (CONT'D)

Earthman, we are now deep in the heart of Magrathea. I should warn you that the chamber we are about to pass into does not literally exist within our planet. It is simply the gateway into a vast tract of hyperspace. It may disturb you.

ARTHUR

(Nervously)

Oh…

SLARTIBARDFAST

It terrifies me. Hold tight.

The air car accelerates towards a hatchway.

ARTHUR

(Gasp of terror)

SLARTIBARDFAST

Welcome to our factory floor!

SLARTIBARTFAST

Welcome to our factory floor.

The space is millions of miles across. Floating in it are half-finished planets, construction gantries around them.

ON ARTHUR — who is positively blown away.

ARTHUR

Aaah! The light…

SLARTIBARDFAST

This is where we make most of our planets, you see.

ARTHUR

Does this mean you're starting it all up again now?

SLARTIBARDFAST

No no, for heaven's sake, the Galaxy isn't nearly rich enough to support us yet…no, we've been awakened to perform just one extraordinary commission, it may interest you…there in the distance in front of us.

ARTHUR

(Chilled)

Oh no...

SLARTIBARDFAST

You see?

ARTHUR

The Earth!

SLARTIBARDFAST

Well the Earth Mark 2 in fact. It seems that the first one was demolished five minutes too early and the most vital experiment was destroyed. There's been a terrible hooha and so we're going to make a copy from our original blueprints.

ARTHUR

You...are you saying that you originally made the Earth?

SLARTIBARDFAST

Oh yes…did you ever go to a place... I think it's called Norway?

ARTHUR

What? No, no I didn't

SLARTIBARDFAST

Pity…that was one of mine. Won an award you know, lovely crinkly edges.

ARTHUR

I can't take this - did I hear you say the Earth was destroyed…five minutes too early?

SLARTIBARDFAST

Shocking cock up, the mice were furious.

ARTHUR

(In a dead way)

Mice.

SLARTIBARDFAST

Yes, the whole thing was their experiment you see. A ten million year research program to find the Ultimate Question - big job you know.

The aircar touches down on a landing pad. Slartibardfast and Arthur exit the aircar and enter into a door.

**SCENE XVI – MAGRATHEA PLANNING OFFICE – DAY**

Slartibardfast and Arthur enter into the Magrathea Planning Office, which looks like a regular architectural firm office on Earth but for a department executive.

ARTHUR

Mice? What do you mean mice? I think we must be mixing somethings up. Mice to me mean the little white furry things with a cheese fixation and women standing screaming on tables in early sixties sitcoms.

SLARTIBARDFAST

Earthman, it is sometimes hard to follow your mode of speech. Remember I have been asleep inside this planet of Magrathea for five million years and know little of these early sixties sitcoms of which you speak. These creatures you call mice, you see, are not quite as they appear. They are merely the protrusions into our dimension of vast hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings, the whole business with the cheese and the squeaking is just a front.

ARTHUR

A front?

SLARTIBARDFAST

Oh yes, you see the mice set up the whole Earth business as an epic experiment in behavioral psychology...a ten million year program.

ARTHUR

No, look, you've got it the wrong way round. It was us, we used to do the experiments on them...

SLARTIBARDFAST

A ten million year old program in which your planet Earth and its people formed the matrix of an organic computer. I gather that the mice did arrange for you humans to conduct some primitively staged experiments on them just to check how much you'd really learnt, give you the odd prod in the right direction, you know the sort of thing - suddenly running down the maze the wrong way, eating the wrong piece of cheese, or unexpectedly dying of myxomatosis.

INTERCOM

(Paging)

Attention please, Slartibartfast, would Slartibartfast and the visiting Earth creature please report immediately to the works reception area. Thank you.

SLARTIBARDFAST

However, in the field of management relations they're absolutely shocking.

ARTHUR

Really?

SLARTIBARDFAST

Yes, well you see every time they give me an order I just want to jump on a table and scream.

ARTHUR

I can see that would be a problem.

**SCENE XVII – SLARTIBARDFAST'S STUDY– DAY**

ON THE COMPUTER SCREEN -

The screen brightens. A BRAND LOGO appears (a circle made of a dotted line with an "M" in the middle) then a subtitle: MAGRATHEAN PUBLIC ARCHIVE. SLARTIBARDFAST fast forwards until a noisy picture DISSOLVES TO...

EXT. OUTSIDE TEMPLE OF DEEP THOUGHT – DAY

A procession surrounds a CHARIOT. Two young philosophers, LUNKWILL and FOOK (20'S) ride it into a grand TEMPLE.

INT. TEMPLE OF DEEP THOUGHT.

The aisles are lined with Priest-Technicians. Ahead is DEEP THOUGHT - a huge Buddha-esque computer. The procession peels away to both sides. Lunkwill and Fook dismount and approach.

DEEP THOUGHT

(Very majestic and grand computer voice.)

What is this great task for which I, Deep Thought, the second greatest computer in the Universe of Time and Space have been called into existence?

Hubbub of concerned voices saying 'Second greatest?

LUNKWILL

Your task, O Computer...

FOOK

No, wait a minute, this isn't right. Deep Thought?

DEEP THOUGHT

Speak and I will hear.

FOOK

Are you not as we designed you to be, the greatest, most powerful computer in all creation?

DEEP THOUGHT

I described myself as the second greatest, and such I am.

FOOK

But this is preposterous!

LUNKWILL

Are you not a greater computer than the Milliard Gargantuabrain at Maximegalon which can count all the atoms in a star in a millisecond?

DEEP THOUGHT

The Milliard Gargantuabrain? A mere abacus, mention it not.

FOOK

And are you not a greater analyst than the Googleplex Starthinker in the Seventh Galaxy of Light and Ingenuity which can calculate the trajectory of every single dust particle throughout a five week Aldebaran sand blizzard?

DEEP THOUGHT

A five week sand blizzard? You ask this of me who has contemplated the very vectors of the atoms in the Big Bang itself? Don't bother me not with this pocket calculator stuff.

LUNKWILL

And are you not a more fiendish disputant than the Great Hyperlobic Omnicognate Neutron Wrangler, which can…

DEEP THOUGHT

The Great Hyperlobic Omnicognate Neutron Wrangler can talk four legsoff an Arcturan Megadonkey but only I can persuade it to go for a walkafterwards.

FOOK

Then what's the problem?

DEEP THOUGHT

I speak of none but the computer that is to come after me.

LUNKWILL

Oh, come on. I think this is getting needlessly prophetic.

DEEP THOUGHT

You know nothing of future time, and yet in my teeming circuitry I can navigate the infinite delta streams of future probability and see that there must one day come a computer whose merest operational parameters I am not worthy to calculate, but which it will be my destiny eventually to design.

FOOK

Can we get on and ask the question?

DEEP THOUGHT

Speak.

LUNKWILL

Oh Deep Thought Computer, the task this. We want you to tell us...the Answer!

DEEP THOUGHT

The Answer? The answer to what?

FOOK

Life.

LUNKWILL

The Universe.

FOOK

Everything.

DEEP THOUGHT

Tricky.

LUNKWILL

But can you do it?

DEEP THOUGHT

(Pause)

Yes. I can do it.

FOOK

There is an answer? A simple answer?

DEEP THOUGHT

Yes. Life, the Universe and Everything. There is an answer. But I'll have to think about it.

A door passionately breaks down.

LUNKWILL

(Shocked)

What's happening?

VROOMFONDEL

We demand admission!

MAJIKTHISE

Come on, you can't keep us out!

VROOMFONDEL

We demand that you can't keep us out!

FOOK

Who are you? What do you want? We're busy.

MAJIKTHISE

I am Majikthise.

VROOMFONDEL

And I demand that I am Vroomfondel.

MAJIKTHISE

It's all right, you don't need to demand that.

VROOMFONDEL

All right, I am Vroomfondel, and that is not a demand, that is a solid fact! What we demand is solid facts!

MAJIKTHISE

(Aside)

No we don't. That's exactly what we don't demand.

VROOMFONDEL

We don't demand solid facts! What we demand is a total absence of solid facts! I demand that I may or may not be Vroomfondel.

LUNKWILL

Who are you, anyway?

MAJIKTHISE

We are philosophers.

VROOMFONDEL

Though we may not be.

MAJIKTHISE

Yes we are.

VROOMFONDEL

Oh, sorry.

MAJIKTHISE

We are quite definitely here as representatives of the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and Other Professional Thinking Persons, and we want this machine off, and we want it off now!

FOOK

What is all this?

VROOMFONDEL

We demand that you get rid of it!

LUNKWILL

What's the problem.

MAJIKTHISE

I'll tell you what the problem is, mate. Unemployment, that's the problem.

VROOMFONDEL

We demand that unemployment may or may not be the problem.

MAJIKTHISE

You just let the machines get on with the adding up and we'll take care of the eternal questions thank you very much. By law the Quest for Ultimate Truth is quite clearly the inalienable right of your working thinkers. Any bloody machine goes and actually finds it and we're straight out of a job aren't we? I mean what's the use of our sitting up all night saying there may…

VROOMFONDEL

Or may not be...

MAJIKTHISE

…or may not be, a God if this machine comes along next morning and gives you his telephone number?

VROOMFONDEL

We demand guaranteed rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty.

DEEP THOUGHT

Might I make an observation at this point?

MAJIKTHISE

You keep out of this, metalnose.

VROOMFONDEL

We demand that that machine not be allowed to think about this problem!

DEEP THOUGHT

If I might make an observation…

MAJIKTHISE

We'll go on strike!

VROOMFONDEL

That's right, you'll have a national Philosophers' Strike on your hands.

DEEP THOUGHT

Who will that inconvenience?

VROOMFONDEL

Never mind who it will inconvenience you box of blacklegging binary bits. It'll hurt, buster, it'll hurt!

DEEP THOUGHT

(Considerably more loudly)

If I might make an observation! All I wanted to say is that my circuits are now irrevocably committed to computing the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything…

(Loud objections from Vroomfondel and Majikthise)

…but the program will take me seven…

FOOK

What? Until next week?

DEEP THOUGHT

…and a half million years to run…

EVERYONE TOGETHER

(Dumbfounded)

How long?

DEEP THOUGHT

Yes, I said I'd have to think about it didn't I? And it occurs to me that running a program like this is bound to cause sensational public interest…

MAJIKTHISE & VROOMFONDEL TOGETHER

(More loud objections)

DEEP THOUGHT

…and so any philosophers who are quick off the mark are going to clean up in the prediction business.

VROOMFONDEL

Prediction business?

DEEP THOUGHT

Obviously you just get on the pundit circuit. You all go on the chat shows and the color supplements and violently disagree with each other about what answer I'm eventually going to produce, and if you get yourselves clever agents you'll be on the gravy train for life.

MAJIKTHISE

Bloody hell. Now that is what I call thinking. Here, Vroomfondel, why do we never think of things like that?

VROOMFONDEL

Dunno. Think our minds must be too highly trained, Majikthise.

The hologram ends. Slartibardfast moves to insert another recording crystal into the computer matrix to play another hologram.

ARTHUR

But I don't understand what all this has got to do with the Earth and mice and things.

SLARTIBARDFAST

All will become clear to you, Earthman. Are you not anxious to hear what the computer had to say seven and a half million years later? Oh well, yes of course. Quite. Here is the recording of the events of that fateful day.

EXT. TEMPLE OF DEEP THOUGHT.

The aisles are lined with Priest-Technicians. Ahead is DEEP THOUGHT - a huge Buddha-esque computer. The procession peels away to both sides. It's almost a repeat of the previous meeting. Outside, a crowd is cheering and a band is playing.

DEEP THOUGHT

Oh People who wait in the Shadow of Deep Thought! Honored Descendants of Vroomfondel and Majikthise the Greatest and Most Truly Interesting Pundits the Universe has ever known…the Time of Waiting is over!

Loud cheering from the crowd.

DEEP THOUGHT (CONT'D)

Seven and a half million years our race has waited for this Great and Hopefully Enlightening Day! The Day of the Answer!

More loud cheering from the crowd.

DEEP THOUGHT (CONT'D)

Never again will we wake up in the morning and think 'Who am I?', 'What is the purpose in Life?', 'Does it really, Cosmically Speaking, matter if I don't get up and go to work?' For today we will finally learn, once and for all, the plain and simple answer to all these Nagging Little Problems of Life, the Universe and Everything! From today we can enjoy our games of Brockian Ultra-Cricket in the firm and comfortable knowledge that the meaning of Life is now well and Truly Sorted Out!

The crowd continues to cheer wildly. Two philosophers wearily but purposefully approach the computer.

PHILOSOPHER ONE

Seventy five thousand generations ago our ancestors set this program in motion.

PHILOSOPHER TWO

An awesome project.

Deep thought clears his throat.

PHILOSOPHER ONE

(Eagerly, excitedly)

Deep Thought prepares to speak.

DEEP THOUGHT

Good Evening.

PHILOSOPHER TWO

(Timidly, excitedly)

Good Evening…Oh Deep Thought...do you have…

DEEP THOUGHT

An answer for you? Yes, I have.

PHILOSOPHER ONE

There really is one?

DEEP THOUGHT

There really is one.

PHILOSOPHER TWO

To Everything? To the great question of Life, the Universe and Everything?

DEEP THOUGHT

Yes.

PHILOSOPHER ONE

And are you ready to give it to us?

DEEP THOUGHT

I am.

PHILOSOPHER TWO

Now?

DEEP THOUGHT

Now.

PHILOSOPHER ONE

(In awe)

Wow.

DEEP THOUGHT

(Pause)

Though I don't think you're going to like it.

PHILOSOPHER ONE

Doesn't matter! We must know it!

DEEP THOUGHT

Now?

PHILOSOPHER TWO

Yes! Now!

DEEP THOUGHT

All right.

(Pause)

PHILOSOPHER ONE

Well?

DEEP THOUGHT

You're really not going to like it.

PHILOSOPHER TWO

(Anxiously)

Tell us!

DEEP THOUGHT

All right. The Answer to Everything…

PHILOSOPHER ONE

Yes...!

DEEP THOUGHT

…Life, The Universe and Everything…

PHILOSOPHER TWO

Yes...!

DEEP THOUGHT

Is...

PHILOSOPHERS TOGETHER

Yes...!

DEEP THOUGHT

Is...Forty Two.

(Pause. Actually quite a long one)

PHILOSOPHER ONE

We're going to get firing squad, you know that.

DEEP THOUGHT

It was a tough assignment.

PHILOSOPHERS TOGETHER

(Incredulously)

Forty two!?

DEEP THOUGHT

I think the problem such as it was, was too broadly based. You never actually stated what the question was.

PHILOSOPHER ONE

But it was the Ultimate Question, the Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything!

DEEP THOUGHT

Exactly. Now you know that the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything is forty two, all you need to do now is find out what the Ultimate Question is.

PHILOSOPHER TWO

All right, all right, all right. Can you please…tell us…the Question?

DEEP THOUGHT

The Ultimate Question?

PHILOSOPHER ONE

Yes.

DEEP THOUGHT

Of Life, the Universe?

PHILOSOPHER TWO

And everything?

DEEP THOUGHT

And Everything.

PHILOSOPHER ONE

Yes.

DEEP THOUGHT

Tricky.

PHILOSOPHER TWO

But can you do it?

DEEP THOUGHT

…No.

PHILOSOPHERS TOGETHER

(Slumping dejectedly)

Oh God…

DEEP THOUGHT

But I'll tell you who can.

PHILOSOPHER ONE

Who?

PHILOSOPHER TWO

Tell us, tell us.

DEEP THOUGHT

I speak of none but the computer that is to come after me. A computer whose merest operational parameters I am not worthy to calculate - and yet I will design it for you. A computer which can calculate the question to the Ultimate answer, a computer of such infinite and subtle complexity that organic life itself will form part of its operational matrix. And you yourselves shall take on new forms and go down into the computer to navigate its ten million year program. I shall design this computer for you, and I shall name it for you. And it shall be called the Earth!

PHILOSOPHER ONE

Oh. What a dull name.

**SCENE XVIII – SLARTIBARDFAST'S STUDY - DAY**

The hologram turns off. Slartibardfast turns to Arthur.

SLARTIBARDFAST

So there you have it. Deep Thought designed it, we built it and you lived on it.

ARTHUR

And the Vogons came and destroyed it five minutes before the program was completed.

SLARTIBARDFAST

Yes. Ten million years of planning and work gone just like that. Well, that's bureaucracy for you.

ARTHUR

You know, all this explains a lot of things. All through my life I've had this strange unaccountable feeling that something was going on in the world, something big, even sinister, and no one would tell me what it was.

SLARTIBARDFAST

No, that's just perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that.

ARTHUR

Well…perhaps that means that somewhere…outside the Universe…

SLARTIBARDFAST

Maybe. Who cares? Perhaps I'm old and tired, but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied. Look at me I design coastlines. I got an award for Norway. Where's the sense in that? None that I've been able to make out. I've been doing fjords all my life…for a fleeting moment they become fashionable and I get a major award. In this replacement Earth we're building they've given me Africa to do and of course I'm doing it with all fjords again because I happen to like them and I'm old fashioned enough to think that they give a lovely baroque feel to a continent. And they tell me it's not equatorial enough. What does it matter? Science has achieved some wonderful things of course, but I'd far rather be happy than right any day.

ARTHUR

And are you?

SLARTIBARDFAST

No. That's where it all falls down of course.

ARTHUR

Pity, it sounded like quite a good lifestyle otherwise.

INTERCOM

(Paging, exasperatedly)

Attention please Slartibartfast. Would Slartibartfast and the visiting Earth creature please report immediately, repeat immediately, to the works reception area. The mice aren't wanting to hang about in this dimension all day.

SLARTIBARDFAST

Come on, I suppose we'd better go and see what they want.

ARTHUR

I seem to be having this tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle…

A freak wormhole opens up at the exact moment Arthur says this line but nothing else visibly happens.

ARTHUR (CONT'D)

As soon as I reach some kind of definite policy about what is my kind of music and my kind of restaurant and my kind of overdraft, people start blowing up my kind of planet and throwing me out of their kind of spaceships. It's so hard to build up anything coherent. I'm sorry all this must sound rather fatuous to you.

SLARTIBARDFAST

Yes, I thought so. Just forget I ever said it.

BEGIN MONTAGE:

Zoom to the spot where the freak wormhole formed.

Follow and then catch up with Arthur's words 'I seem to be having this tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle' which eerily play back.

Strange and warlike beings are poised on the brink of frightful interstellar battle. The two opposing leaders are meeting for the last time…a dreadful silence fell across the conference table as the commander of the Vl'hurgs, resplendent in his black jewelled battle shorts, gazes levelly at the G'Gugvant leader squatting opposite him in a cloud of green, sweet-smelling steam, and with a million sleek and horribly beweaponed star cruisers poised to unleash electric death at his single word of command, challenges the vile creature to take back what it had said about his mother. The creature stirred in his sickly broiling vapor and at that very moment, the words 'I seem to be having this tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle' drift across the conference table. In the Vl'hurg language this was the most dreadful insult imaginable and there was nothing for it but to wage terrible war. Eventually of course, after their galaxy had been decimated over a few thousand years, it was realized that the whole thing had been a ghastly mistake, and so the two opposing battle fleets settles their few remaining differences in order to launch a joint attack on the Milky Way Galaxy, now positively identified as the source of the offending remark. For thousands more years the mighty ships tore across the empty wastes of space and finally dived screaming on to the planet Earth, where, due to a terrible miscalculation of scale, the entire battle fleet is accidentally swallowed by a small dog.

END MONTAGE.

**SCENE XIX – MAGRATHEA DINING HALL – DAY**

A door hums open.

TRILLIAN

(Relieved)

Arthur! You're safe!

ARTHUR

(Slightly startled)

Am I? Oh good.

FORD

Hi Arthur, come and join us.

ARTHUR

Ford! Trillian! Zaphod! What happened to you?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Well our hosts here attacked us with a fantastic Dismodulating Anti-Phasestun ray and then invited us to this amazingly keen meal by way of making it up to us.

ARTHUR

Hosts? What hosts? I can't see any hosts?

BENJY MOUSE

(In a deep philosophical pontificating voice unlikely for a mouse)

Welcome to lunch, Earth Creature.

ARTHUR

What? Who said that? Ugh! There's a mouse on the table.

FORD

Oh, haven't you found out yet, Arthur?

ARTHUR

What? Oh I see, yes…yes, I just wasn't quite prepared for the full reality of it.

TRILLIAN

Arthur, let me introduce you. This is Benjy Mouse.

BENJY MOUSE

(Friendly)

Hi.

TRILLIAN

And this is Frankie mouse.

FRANKIE MOUSE

Nice to meet you.

TRILLIAN

It seems they control quite a large sector of the Universe in our dimension.

ARTHUR

But aren't they…

TRILLIAN

Yes, they are the mice I took with me from the Earth. It seems our whole journey has been staged from the beginning.

SLARTIBARDFAST

Er, excuse me…

FRANKIE MOUSE

Yes, thank you, Slartibartfast, you may go.

SLARTIBARDFAST

(Slightly surprised and crestfallen)

What? Oh…oh very well. Thankyou sir, I'll…I'll just go and get on with some of my fjords then.

FRANKIE MOUSE

Er, in fact that won't be necessary. We won't be requiring the new Earth after all. We've had this rather interesting proposition put to us.

SLARTIBARDFAST

(Disbelieving)

What? You can't mean that. I've got a thousand glaciers poised and ready to roll over Africa!

FRANKIE MOUSE

Well, perhaps you can take a quick skiing holiday before you dismantle them.

SLARTIBARDFAST

Skiing holiday! Those glaciers are works of art! Elegantly sculptured contours, soaring pinnacles of ice, deep majestic ravines, it would be sacrilege to go skiing on High Art.

FRANKIE MOUSE

(Firmly)

Thank you Slartibartfast, that will be all.

SLARTIBARDFAST

Yes sir, thank you very much sir. Well, goodbye Earthman. Hope the lifestyle comes together.

ARTHUR

Goodbye then. Sorry about the fjords.

Slartibardfast exits. The door shuts behind him.

FRANKIE MOUSE

Now to business.

ZAPHOD, FORD, TRILLIAN TOGETHER

To business!

Glasses clink together.

BENJY MOUSE

I beg your pardon?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

I'm sorry, I thought you were proposing a toast.

FRANKIE MOUSE

Now, Earth Creature, we have, as you know, been more or less running your planet for the last ten million years in order to find this wretched thing called the Ultimate Question.

ARTHUR

Why?

BENJY MOUSE

No, we already thought of that one, but it doesn't fit the answer. 'Why?' , 'Forty two'. You see, it doesn't work.

ARTHUR

No, I mean why have you been doing it?

FRANKIE MOUSE

Well, eventually just habit I think, to be brutally honest. And this is more or less the point. We're sick to the teeth of the whole thing and the prospect of doing it all over again on account of those whinnet-ridden Vogons quite frankly gives me the screaming heeby-jeebies, you know what I mean?

BENJY MOUSE

We've been offered a quite enormously fat contract to do the 5D TV chat show and lecture circuit, and I'm very much inclined to take it.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

I would, wouldn't you, Ford?

FORD

Oh yes, jump at it like a shark.

ARTHUR

But that's exactly the attitude those philosophers took. Does no one in this galaxy do anything other than appear on chat shows?

FRANKIE MOUSE

I mean, yes idealism, yes the dignity of pure research, yes the pursuit of truth in all its forms, but there comes a point I'm afraid where you begin to suspect that if there's any real truth it's that the entire multi-dimensional infinity of the Universe is almost certainly being run by a bunch of maniacs; and if it comes to a choice between spending another ten million years finding that out and on the other hand just taking the money and running, then I for one could do with the exercise.

BENJY MOUSE

The point is this…we are in a position to give you a very important commission. We still want to find the Ultimate Question because it gives us a lot of bargaining muscle with the 5D TV companies, so it's worth a lot of money.

(The mice giggle together avariciously)

FRANKIE MOUSE

I mean quite clearly if we're sitting there looking very relaxed in the studio mentioning that we happen to know the Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything and then eventually have to admit that it's forty two, then I think the show's probably quite short.

ARTHUR

Yes, but doesn't that mean you've got to go through your whole ten million year program again?

FRANKIE MOUSE

We think there might be a short cut. Your agent…

ZAPHOD BEELBEBROX

That's me.

ARTHUR

(Startled)

Is it?

FRANKIE MOUSE

Your agent has suggested that both you and Earth girl, as last generation products of the computer matrix are probably in an ideal position to find the question for us and find it quickly. Go out and find it for us and we'll make you a reasonably rich man.

ZAPHOD BEELBEBROX

We're holding out for extremely rich.

FRANKIE MOUSE

(Exasperated)

All right, extremely rich. You drive a hard bargain, Beeblebrox.

Sirens begin to go off.

INTERCOM

Emergency, emergency…hostile ship has landed on planet. Intruders now within works reception area. Defense stations, defense stations.

BENJY MOUSE

Hell's bells, what is it now?

TRILLIAN

Zaphod! Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

The Police! Hell and bat's do's. We've got to get out of here!

BENJY MOUSE

Police?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Yeah, it's this wretched space craft we've stolen. I left them a note explaining how they could make a profit on the insurance claim but it doesn't seem to have worked.

FORD

Come on then! Let's move.

Everyone hurriedly gets up.

FRANKIE MOUSE

Earthman, find us the question!

ARTHUR

HOW?

FRANKIE MOUSE

Er…no that doesn't work either.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

We'll find it. Come on, get out of here!

FORD

Thanks for the meal guys. Sorry we've got to rush.

They all run out of the room.

FORD

Which way you reckon, Zaphod?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

At a wild guess I'd say down here.

SHOOTY

(Young American cop type, shouts from distance)

OK Beeblebrox, hold it right there. We've got you covered.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

You want to try a guess at all, Ford?

FORD

OK this way.

BANG BANG

(Cop, similar)

We don't want to shoot you, Beeblebrox.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Suits me fine.

TRILLIAN

We're cornered.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Hell, I've dropped my adrenalin pills. All right, behind this computer bank, get down.

The police officers shoot at the FORD, ZAPHOD, TRILLIAN and ARTHUR regardless.

ARTHUR

Hey, they're shooting at us.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Yeah.

ARTHUR

I thought they said they didn't want to do that.

TRILLIAN

Yeah, I thought they said that.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

(Shouting)

Hey, I thought you said you didn't want to shoot us!

SHOOTY

(Shouting)

It isn't easy being a cop!

FORD

What did he say?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

He said it isn't easy being a cop.

FORD

Well surely that's his problem, isn't it?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

I'd have thought so.

FORD

(Shouting)

Hey listen, I think we've got enough problems of our own with you shooting at us, so if you could avoid laying your problems on us as well I think we'd probably find it easier to cope!

BANG BANG

(Shouting)

Now see here, buddy, you're not dealing with any dumb two bit trigger pumping morons with low hair lines, little piggy eyes and no conversation, we're a couple of intelligent caring guys who you'd probably quite like if you met us socially.

SHOOTY

That's right, I'm really sensitive.

BANG BANG

I don't go around gratuitously shooting people and then bragging about it in seedy space rangers' bars. I go around gratuitously shooting people and then agonize about it afterwards to my girlfriend.

SHOOTY

And I write novels!

BANG BANG

Yeah, he writes them in crayon.

SHOOTY

Though I haven't had any of them published yet, so I'd better warn you I'm in a meeaaan mood!

FORD

Who are these guys?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

I think I preferred it when they were shooting.

BANG BANG

(Shouting)

So are you going to come quietly or are you going to let us blast you out?

FORD

(Shouting)

Which would you rather?

The two officers continue shooting at FORD, ZAPHOD, TRILLIAN and Arthur. Then after a little while they stop.

BANG BANG

(Shouting)

You still there?

ZAPHOD/FORD/ARTHUR/TRILLIAN TOGETHER

Yes.

SHOOTY

(Shouting)

We didn't enjoy doing that at all!

FORD

(Shouting)

We could tell!

(Aside)

Zaphod, have you any ideas on how we're going to deal with these loonies?

BANG BAN

(Shouting)

Now listen to this, Beeblebrox, and you'd better listen good.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Why?

BANG BANG

Because it's going to be very intelligent, and quite interesting and humane.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

O.K. Fire away…No, I mean…

The officers fire another fusillade of shots at FORD, ZAPHOD, TRILLIAN and Arthur.

SHOOTY

Oh, God that was dumb misunderstanding there.

FORD

Nice one, Zaphod.

BANG BANG

Beeblebrox, either you all give yourselves up now and let us beat you up a bit, though not very much of course because we are firmly opposed to needless violence…

SHOOTY

Dead against it.

BANG BANG

…or we blow up this entire planet and possibly one or two others we noticed on our way here.

TRILLIAN

(Suddenly getting seriously upset about it)

But that's crazy. You wouldn't blow up this entire planet just to get a bloody spaceship back!

BANG BANG

Yes we would. I think we would, wouldn't we?

SHOOTY

Oh yes, we'd have to, no question.

TRILLIAN

But Why?

SHOOTY

Tell her!

BANG BANG

(Shouting)

Because there are some things you've got to do even if you are an enlightened liberal cop who knows all about sensitivity and everything.

SHOOTY

This is true.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

I just don't believe these guys.

SHOOTY

Shall we shoot them again for a bit?

BANG BANG

Yeah, why not?

The police officers resume shooting their blasters at FORD, ZAPHOD, TRILLIAN and ARTHUR.

TRILLIIAN

We're not going to be safe behind this computer bank for much longer, fellas. It's been really nice knowing you, I just want to say that.

FORD

Yeah, it's really been great. And it was really nice bumping into you again, Zaphod.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

I wish I hadn't dropped my adrenalin pills.

FORD

The computer bank is absorbing a hell of a lot of energy. I think it's about to blow.

A heavy oscillating hum builds up with the energy being absorbed by the computer bank.

ARTHUR

It's a shame we never managed to get the work done revising the book, I thought it looked rather promising.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Yeah. What book?

ARTHUR

The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Oh, that thing.

FORD

Look, I hate to say this but this thing really is going to blow up.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

OK, OK.

Shortly afterwards, the computer bank explodes.

**SCENE XX – THE RESTAURANT AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE – DAY**

FORD, ZAPHOD, TRILLIAN and ARTHUR all wake up in a cloud of smoke in a fancy kind of foyer. As the smoke clears, an old stately looking butler-esque kind of gentleman is waiting. He is dressed in waiters clothing, but they are clearly at a high class restaurant. The waiter's name is Garkbit.

ALL

(All heavily gasp)

GARKBIT

Good evening gentlemen, madam. Do you have a reservation?

FORD

Reservation?

GARKBIT

Yes, sir.

FORD

So you need a reservation for the afterlife?

GARKBIT

The afterlife, sir?

ARTHUR

This is the afterlife?

FORD

Well I assume so, I mean there's no way we could have survived that blast is there?

ARTHUR

No.

TRILLIAN

None at all.

ARTHUR

I was dead.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

I certainly didn't survive, I was a total goner. Wham, bang and that was it.

FORD

We didn't stand a chance, we must have been blown to bits. Arms, legs, everywhere.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Yeah.

Pause.

GARKBIT

(Coughing politely)

If you would care to order drinks…?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

(Ignoring and interrupting him)

Kerpow! splat, instantaneously zonked into our component molecules. Hey, did you get that amazing thing of your whole life flashing before you?

FORD

Yeah, you got that too did you? Your whole life?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Yeah. At least I assume it was mine. I spend a lot of time out of my skulls you know.

FORD

So what?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Here we are, lying dead…

TRILLIAN

Standing…

ZAPHOD

Standing dead in this er…desolate…

ARTHUR

Restaurant…

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Standing dead in this desolate…

ARTHUR

Five star…

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Five star restaurant.

FORD

Odd, isn't it?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Er, yeah.

TRILLIAN

Nice chandeliers, though.

ARTHUR

It's not so much an afterlife, more a sort of après vie.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Hey, hang about…I think we're missing something important here, something really important that somebody just said…What was it?

(To GARKBIT)

Hey, you.

GARKBIT

Sir?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Did you say something about drinks?

GARKBIT

Certainly, sir. If the lady and gentlemen would care to take drinks before dinner…

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Yeah, great.

GARKBIT

And the Universe will explode later for your pleasure.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Hey, what?

FORD

(Excitedly)

Wow, what sort of drinks do you serve here?

GARKBIT

(Laughing)

Ah, I think sir has perhaps misunderstood me.

FORD

I hope not.

GARKBIT

It is not unusual for our customers to be a little disorientated by the time journey, so if I might suggest…

TRILLIAN

Time journey?

FORD

(Virtually together with Trillian)

What time journey?

ARTHUR

You mean this isn't the afterlife?

GARKBIT

Afterlife sir? No, sir.

ARTHUR

And we're not dead?

GARKBIT

Aha, ha, no sir. Sir is most evidently alive, otherwise I would not attempt to serve sir.

FORD

Then where the photon are we?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

(Suddenly)

Hey, I've guessed it. This must be Milliways!

FORD

Milliways!

GARKBIT

Yes, this is Milliways, the Restaurant at the end of the Universe.

ARTHUR

End of what?

GARKBIT

The Universe.

ARTHUR

When did that end?

GARKBIT

In just a few minutes, sir. Now, if you would care to order drinks I'll show you to your table.

As they all begin to sit down at the table, Arthur turns to Ford.

ARTHUR

Ford what did he say this place was?

FORD

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

ARTHUR

Then how does it work?

ARTHUR

But look, surely, if the Universe is about to end here and now, don't we go with it?

FORD

The Restaurant at the end of the Universe is one of the most extraordinary ventures in the entire history of catering.

ARTHUR

Oh really?

FORD

Yeah, a vast time bubble has been projected into the future to the precise moment of the End of the Universe.

ARTHUR

That is, of course, impossible.

FORD

(As if ignoring Arthur)

In it, guests take their places at table and eat sumptuous meals whilst watching the whole of creation explode about them.

ARTHUR

Again, that is impossible.

FORD

(Still as if ignoring Arthur)

You can arrive for any sitting you like without prior reservation because you can book retrospectively as it were when you return to your own time.

ARTHUR

This is ridiculously impossible.

FORD

(Continuing as if ignoring Arthur)

At the Restaurant you can meet and dine with a fascinating cross-section of the entire population of space and time.

ARTHUR

That is exceptionally impossible.

FORD  
(Still as if ignoring Arthur)

You can visit it as many times as you like and be sure of never meeting yourself-because of the embarrassment that usually causes.

ARTHUR

Ok, Ford, this is all sounding impractically impossible now.

FORD

(Continuing as if ignoring Arthur)

All you have to do is deposit one penny in a savings account in your own time, and when you arrive at the end of time the operation of compound interest means that the fabulous cost of your meal has been paid for.

ARTHUR

That's the most impossible sounding thing so far!

Ford

Exactly! Which is why the advertising executives of the Star System of Bastablon came up with this slogan -'If you've done six impossible things this morning why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe?'

ARTHUR

I still don't think I understand everything yet…

FORD

No look, as soon as you come into this diner I think you get held in this sort of amazing force shielded temporal warp thing. Look I'll show you. Now imagine this napkin as the temporal universe, right, and this spoon as a transductional mode in the matter curve.

ARTHUR

That's the spoon I was going to be eating with.

FORD

All right, imagine this spoon is the transductional mode in the matter curve, no better still this fork…

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Hey could you let go of my fork please?

FORD

Look, why don't we say this wine glass is the temporal universe…so if I sort of…

Ford proceeds to smash the wine glass on the floor and it shatters.

FORD

Forget that, I mean, do you know how the Universe began for a kick off?

ARTHUR

Er, probably not.

FORD

Alright, imagine this. You get a large round bath made of ebony…

ARTHUR

Where from? Louis Viton was destroyed by the Vogons.

FORD

Doesn't matter…

ARTHUR

So you keep saying.

FORD

No listen, just imagine that you've got this ebony bath, OK? And it's conical…

ARTHUR

Conical? What kind of…

FORD

Sshh…It's conical. So what you do, you fill it with fine white sand, right, or sugar, anything like that…and when it's full you pull the plug out and it all just twirls down out of the plug hole.

ARTHUR

Why?

FORD

But the thing is, the clever bit, is that you film it happening, you get a movie camera from somewhere and actually film it, but then you thread the film in the computer backwards…

ARTHUR

Backwards?

FORD

Yeah, neat you see, so what happens is you sit and watch it and then everything appears to spiral upwards out of the plug hole and fill the bath. See?

ARTHUR

And that's how the Universe began?

FORD

No, but it's a marvelous way to relax.

TRILLIAN

Funnyman.

FORD

Broke the ice, didn't it?

COMPERE

(Speaking on a PA mike over the music and general restaurant atmosphere. It's clearly a PA mike because there is the occasional pop or bit of feedback or sound of the mike being knocked)

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. I am your host for tonight, Max Quordlepleen, and I've just come straight from the other end of time where I've been hosting the show at the Big Bang Burger Chef, where we had a real way hay hay of an evening ladies and gentlemen, and I will be with you right through this tremendous historic occasion, the end of history itself.

The audience applauds.

COMPERE

Thank you ladies and gentlemen, take your places at table, the candles are lit, the band is playing, and as the force shielded dome above us fades into transparency revealing a dark and sullen sky hung heavy with the ancient light of livid swollen stars I can see we're in for a fabulous evening's apocalypse. Thank you very much.

ARTHUR

Do you do Take-Out?

GARKBIT

Ah ha, no sir, here at Milliways we only serve the very finest in Ultracuisine.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

(With disgust)

Ultracuisine? Don't give me head pains. Look at this…Algolian Zylbatburger smothered in a hint of Vulcan Dodo spit.

GARKBIT

Saliva, sir, saliva. The salivary gland of the Vulcan UltraDodo is a delicacy much sought after.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Not by me.

ARTHUR

What is an Algolian Zylbatburger anyway?

FORD

They're a kind of meat burger made from the most unpleasant parts of a creature well known for its total lack of any pleasant parts.

ARTHUR

So you mean that the Universe does actually end not with a bang but with a French fry?

GARKBIT

Believe me, sir, the Universe ends with a very big bang indeed, and the food here is the ultimate gastronomic experience.

FORD

Yes, but is it good?

Gradually pan around to see the Compere in the center of the stage gesticulating passionately.

COMPERE

And as the photon storms gather in swirling clouds around us preparing to tear apart the last of the red hot suns, I hope you'll all settle back and enjoy with me what I am sure we will all find an immensely exciting and terminal experience. Believe me ladies and gentlemen, there is nothing penultimate about this one, you know what I mean. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the proverbial it.

Polite applause.

COMPERE

After this there is void, absolute nothing, except of course for the sweet trolley and our fine selection of Aldebaran liqueurs. And now at the risk of putting a damper on the wonderful sense of doom and futility here, I'd like to welcome a few parties. Do we have a party from the Zansellquasure Flamarion Bridge Club from beyond the Vortvoid of Qvarne? Are they here?

A party of people who sound slightly like sheep begin cheering.

COMPERE (CONT'D)

Good, jolly good. And a party of minor deities from the Halls of Asgard?

Another party cheer and whistle, a thunderbolt shoots out from the table and lightly zaps the Compere.

COMPERE (CONT'D)

Ouch! That hurt. And how about a party of Young Conservatives from Sirius B?

Another party bark and howl from another table.

COMPERE (CONT'D)

(Pause)

Aha, yes. And lastly a party of devout believers from the church of the second coming of the Great Prophet Zarquon. Well fellas, let's hope he's hurrying because he's only got eight minutes left.

A little ripple of cozy laughter.

COMPERE (CONT'D)

But seriously though, no offence meant, because I know we shouldn't make fun of deeply held beliefs, so I think a big hand please for the Great Prophet Zarquon, wherever he's got to.

Applause and more laughter from the audience.

COMPERE (CONT'D)

And you know, I just want to say how marvelous it is to see how many of you come here time and time again to witness this final end of all being and then still manage to return home to your own eras and raise families, strive for new and better societies, fight terrible wars for what you believe to be right. Because you know it really makes one think about the absolutely marvelous future of all life kind - except of course that we know it hasn't got one.

(From this point his speech gradually recedes into the background as we pick up on the conversation of Ford, Arthur, Zaphod and Trillian)

GARKBIT

(Approaches)

Er, excuse me sir.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Who me?

GARKBIT

Mr. Zaphod Beeblebrox?

ZAPHOD

Er, yeah.

GARKBIT

There is a phone call for you.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Hey, what?

TRILLIAN

Here?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Hey but who knows where I am?

TRILLIAN

Zaphod, perhaps it's the police…could they have traced us here?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

You mean they want to arrest me over the phone? Could be, I'm a pretty dangerous dude when I'm cornered.

FORD

Yeah, you go to pieces so fast that people get hit by the shrapnel.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Hey, what is this, Judgement Day?

ARTHUR

Do we get to see that as well? Fantastic.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

I'm in no hurry. So who's the cat on the phone?

GARKBIT

I am not personally acquainted with the metal gentleman in question, sir…

TRILLIAN

Metal?

GARKBIT

…but I am informed that he has been awaiting your return for a considerable number of millenia. It seems you left here, sir, somewhat precipitately…

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Hey, left here? We've only just arrived.

GARKBIT

Indeed, sir, but before you arrived here, sir, you left here.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

You're saying that before we arrived here we left here?

GARKBIT

That is what I said, sir.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Put your analyst on danger money baby, now.

FORD

No wait a minute, where exactly is here?

GARKBIT

The planet Magrathea, sir.

FORD

But we just left there…this is the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, I thought.

GARKBIT

Precisely sir. The one was constructed on the ruins of the other.

ARTHUR

You mean we've travelled in time, but not in space?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Listen you semi-evolved simian, go climb a tree won't you?

ARTHUR

Oh go and bang your heads together four eyes.

GARKBIT

No, no. Your monkey has got it right, sir.

ARTHUR

Who are you calling a monkey?

GARKBIT

(Ignoring him)

You jumped forwards in time many millions of years while retaining the same position in space. Your friend has been waiting for you in the meantime.

FORD

Well, what's he been doing all the time?

GARKBIT

Rusting a little, sir.

TRILLIAN

Marvin! It must be Marvin.

FORD

The Paranoid Android!

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Space cookies! Hand me the rap-rod, plate-captain.

GARKBIT

Pardon, sir.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

The phone, waiter. Shee, you guys are so unhip it's a wonder your bums don't fall off.

GARKBIT

Our what, sir?

Garkbit hands Zaphod an advanced looking phone.

GARKBIT (CONT'D)

The phone, sir.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Marvin, hi, how you doing kid?

MARVIN

I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Hey, yeah? We're having a great time, food, wine, a little personal abuseand the Universe going foom. Where can we find you?

MARVIN

You don't have to pretend to be interested in me you know. I know perfectly well I'm only a menial robot.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

OK, OK, but where are you?

MARVIN

Reverse primary thrust Marvin, that's what they say to me, open airlock number three Marvin, Marvin can you pick up that piece of paper? Can I pick up that piece of paper? Here I am, brain the size of a planet…

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Yeah, yeah…

MARVIN

But I'm quite used to being humiliated. I can even go and stick my head in a bucket of water if you like.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Yeah…Marvin…

MARVIN

Would you like me to go and stick my head in a bucket of water? I've got one ready. Wait a minute.

Marvin dunks a bucket of water over his own head.

FORD

What's he saying Zaphod?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Oh nothing. He just phoned up to wash his head at us.

MARVIN

Has that satisfied you?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Will you please tell us where you are?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

I'm in the car park.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

In the car park? What are you doing there?

MARVIN

Parking cars, what else does one do in…

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Well yeah OK, stay there.

Zaphod hangs up the phone.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX (CONT'D)

Come on guys, let's go. Marvin's down in the car park.

ARTHUR

The car park? What's he doing in the car park?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Parking cars, what else, dum dum? Ford, Trillian, let's move.

ARTHUR

What about my pears Galumbit?

They rush out of the restaurant. The Compere becomes audible again.

A ripple of laughter fades into the metallic echo of an underground parking garage. Zaphod, Ford, Trillian and Arthur walk down a metal catwalk.

TRILLIAN

(Shouts)

There he is! Marvin…

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

(Approaching)

Marvin, hey kid, are we pleased to see you.

MARVIN

No you're not. No one ever is.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Suit yourself.

TRILLIAN

No really Marvin, we are…

ARTHUR

Quite…

TRILLIAN

Hanging around waiting for us all this time.

MARVIN

The first ten million years were the worst. And the second ten million, they were the worst too. The third ten million I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline.

FORD

Hey, Zaphod, come and have a look at some of these little star trolleys.

(Whisper)

Look at this baby, Zaphod. The tangerine starbuggy with the black sunbusters.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

(Whisper)

Hey, get this number. Multicluster quark drive and perspulex running boards. This has got to be a Lazlar LyriKon Kustom job. Look - the infrapink lizard emblem on the neutrino cowling.

FORD

Hey, yeah, I was passed by one of these mothers once out near the Axel Nebula. I was going flat out and this thing just strolled past me, star drive hardly ticking over. Just incredible.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Too much.

FORD

Ten seconds later it smashed straight into the third moon of Jaglan Beta.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Hey, right?

FORD

But a great looking ship though. Looks like a fish, moves like a fish, steers like a cow.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

No kidding?

FORD

No. Wait a minute, wait a minute. That one there.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Hey, Hey. Now that is really bad for the eyes.

FORD

It's so black - you can hardly even make out its shape. Light just falls into it.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

And feel this surface.

FORD

Yeah.

(Surprise)

Hey, you can't…

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

See, it's just totally frictionless…this must be one mother of a mover. I bet even the cigar lighter's on photon drive. Well, what do you reckon, Ford?

FORD

What, you mean steal it? Do you think we should?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

No.

FORD

Nor do I.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Let's do it.

FORD

OK.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

We better shift soon. In a few seconds the Universe will end and all the Captain Creeps will be pouring down here to find their bourge-mobiles.

FORD

Zaphod.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Yeah?

FORD

How do we get into it?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Just don't spoil a beautiful idea will you Ford?

FORD

Perhaps the robot can figure something out.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Yeah. Hey, Marvin, come over, we've got a job for you.

MARVIN

I won't enjoy it.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Yes you will, there's a whole new life stretching out ahead of you.

MARVIN

Oh, not another one.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Will you shut up and listen? This time there's going to be excitement and adventure and really wild things.

MARVIN

Sounds awful.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Marvin! All I'm trying to say…

MARVIN

I suppose you want me to open this spaceship for you…

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Marvin, just listen will you?…What?

MARVIN

I suppose you want me to open this spaceship for you?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Er - yeah.

MARVIN

Well I wish you'd just tell me rather than try and engage my enthusiasm because I haven't got one.

The spaceship door opens.

FORD

Hey, how'd you do that Marvin?

MARVIN

Didn't I tell you, I've got a brain the size of a planet? No one ever listens tome of course.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Oh shut up Marvin.

MARVIN

See what I mean?

FORD

Hey Zaphod, look at this. Look at the interior of this ship.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX

Hey. Weird.

FORD

It's black. Everything in it is just totally black.

INT. – RESTAURANT AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE – DAY

COMPÈRE

And now ladies and gentlemen, the moment you've all been waiting for! The skies begin to boil! Nature collapses into the screaming void! In five seconds time, the Universe itself will be at an end. See where the light of infinity bursts in upon us!

A massive chorus of Hallelujah's and there is a great whoosh of wind.

COMPERE

But what's this? What's happening? Who's this? I don't believe it. A big hand please for the Great Prophet Zarquon!

ZARQUON

(Awkwardly)

Er, hello everybody, sorry I'm a bit late, had a terrible time, all sorts of things cropping up at the last moment. How are we for time? Er…

The Universe Ends. Set to a wonderful, uplifting piece of music ("WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD?").

The End.


End file.
